


Oceans and Moments

by Mephistophelia



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Canon Era, F/M, Falling In Love, French Revolution, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Rare Pairings, Revolutionary War, Slow Burn, Some Fluff, Some Gratuitous Napoleon, Some angst, Wartime Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-30
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-04-15 03:29:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 70,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14150982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mephistophelia/pseuds/Mephistophelia
Summary: Peggy has resigned herself to being the Schuyler sister nobody remembers. But when a French lieutenant shows up at Eliza's wedding, she realizes she's ready to love—and ready to fight.Or, the Peggy/Lafayette AU historical romance arguably no one asked for but me.





	1. Do Me the Honor

**Author's Note:**

> Hey friends! Welcome to the club of People Who Ship Lafayette/Peggy. Membership: pretty much just me I assume.
> 
> This story was originally published on my now-defunct fanfiction.net account, but I'm revising it as I post here to (hopefully) get rid of the mistakes and OOC bits and etcs. So anyway, expect updates semi-regularly.
> 
> Some historical inaccuracies are accidental. Others are intentional. Either way, there will be several of them, and they're all my fault.
> 
> OK lessgo.

_14 December, 1777_

It was Eliza's day, really. Not Peggy's. She was only there to be supportive. To look pretty in the bridal party (not too pretty, of course, but not slovenly enough to attract attention). To pretend it didn't bother her that Eliza had chosen Angelica as the maid of honor, even when it couldn't be more obvious that their eldest sister had been making eyes at Alexander from across the church during the entire ceremony.

That, of course, was none of Peggy's business.

It didn't even make sense, honestly. Alexander was handsome, of course, but there was no shortage of handsome men at the ball Philip Schuyler had thrown in celebration of Eliza's marriage. One of the perks of getting a dashing new brother-in-law: an absolute surplus of equally dashing bachelor friends.

But, Peggy reminded herself, taking a sip of champagne, she was there that night to be supportive.

"Supportive," in this instance, meant waiting a full hour after Eliza and Alexander finished their first dance before trying her luck with the group of young soldiers laughing and drinking near the window.

It was almost literally the least she could do.

She hadn't had her eye on any of them at first. The point wasn't to fall madly in love with someone on the spot. It was her  _sister's wedding,_ for God's sake. And Peggy hadn't had nearly enough champagne that evening to become a romantic. But she was bored. Eliza was understandably occupied, Angelica was busy trying to pretend she wasn't upset, and the other guests at the wedding were either Peggy's spinster aunts, her father's business colleagues, or soldiers. And at least the soldiers looked like they knew how to have a little fun.

One of them in particular, she thought, eyeing the tall, dark-haired lieutenant without a single, solitary ounce of subtlety.

He was athletic-looking, lithe in his navy uniform with gold braid, if still plagued by a sort of youthful awkwardness. Peggy wondered how old he was, that he still hadn't quite learned how to wear his own body comfortably. He slouched against the wall as if trying to look shorter than he really was. It rumpled the jacket of his uniform, giving him a vaguely unwashed look though his clothes were perfectly clean. Unlike most of the other soldiers in Albany striving to look more aristocratic than they were, he wore no wig, and wore his hair simply tied back out of his lean face.

As she watched, he drained the rest of his glass and spoke animatedly to the stocky young man beside him, who seemed to catch one word out of every three.

" _Non, je voulais dire_ _, j'aime les mariages, mais il y a une guerre, et nous avons pas le temps à gaspiller sur ces bagatelles..."_

It took Peggy a moment to realize the soldier wasn't speaking the schoolgirl French her mother had taught all three sisters almost as soon as they'd learned English. This was Parisian French, of a man who'd grown up speaking this way and had to make a conscious effort to speak otherwise.

The tall lieutenant's companion nudged him in the side, then nodded—to Peggy's manifest horror—in her direction.

"You've got an admirer, Lancelot," the man said. "Look."

He did.

Peggy wished the floor would swallow her alive.

The lieutenant grinned at his companion, then set his empty glass on the window-ledge behind him and excused himself from the group with a few quick words Peggy couldn't hear. The idea that she might flee the ballroom occurred to her briefly, but by the time she'd fully considered the notion, there he was. Standing a little beside her, a smile on his face that somehow seemed neither inappropriate nor insincere.

"I am sorry," he said. "I do not think we've been introduced."

One sentence and she knew she'd been right about Paris. He spoke English well, but there was still the faintest misplaced emphasis, the slight drag on his R's and U's, the discomfort with contractions that proclaimed French to be his mother tongue.

"Peggy Schuyler," she said, and dipped a small curtsey. "Least important sister of the bride."

The brilliant whiteness of his smile took her aback. She had always heard such dreadful things about Continental soldiers and their teeth. Lies, apparently.

"Oh, I doubt that very much," he said. "Alexander has talked of nothing but your family for the past month. I may know you better by now than I know myself, Peggy."

She felt herself blush again. Then, embarrassed about blushing, she blushed even harder. "That hardly seems fair, sir," she said. "I don't even know your name."

Peggy wanted to laugh at the look of genuine surprise on his face. "Didn't I—" he began.

"You didn't."

Now it was his turn to blush slightly. He bowed. " _Pardonnez-moi._ Lieutenant Lafayette, at your service."

She frowned. "Lafayette? Do you have a full name, or do you simply like to cultivate an air of mystery?"

Lafayette grinned again. "Americans tend to find my name rather…overwhelming."

Peggy raised her eyebrows. "Try me."

"Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette."

Peggy blinked twice. "How many people's names was that?"

"One. Me."

"Lafayette will do nicely."

He laughed, then wrinkled his nose in irritation at a freckled young man, also in Continental Army blue, who presumably had been making wildly inappropriate gestures of encouragement from behind Peggy's back. "Forgive my friends," he said. "The army does not do great things for our social skills."

Peggy smiled and took half a step closer. "You seem to be doing perfectly fine for yourself, despite the army," she said.

Her own boldness surprised her. Flirtation had always been Angelica's forte, the ability to catch the eye of a room without trying, to say just the right thing to make companies and battalions of men fall in love with her. Usually, it would take two full bottles of champagne and something approaching desperation for Peggy to be as forward as she was being tonight. But something had changed. Angelica was preoccupied by the only man in the entire room she could not have. While Peggy was here with this French lieutenant, handsome and self-conscious, all limbs and enthusiasm like a greyhound puppy, who'd abandoned all his friends to speak with her…

And who now kissed her hand respectfully and asked her, "Might I request the pleasure of the next dance, Mademoiselle Schuyler?"

Her entire body warm and her heart beating fast, Peggy had never before been so grateful that her parents had insisted on giving their daughters a worldly education. If she'd known what thrilling use she'd put those endless French lessons to, she would have resented the educational tenacity of Madame Dufarge infinitely less.

" _Avec plaisir, monsieur,_ " she said, paying as careful attention to the placement of her vowels as she could.

Lafayette smiled and spun her onto the ballroom floor with the rest.

The orchestra had just begun a waltz Peggy had not heard before. Faster, almost mournful, in a minor key, entirely inappropriate for a wedding. It suited her perfectly.

She had seen the way Lafayette's fellow soldiers danced, had even graced a few of them with a song until their hands started drifting in directions hands should not drift, at least not with her father and sisters in the room looking on. Lafayette, on the other hand, was intimate but chaste. One hand on the small of her back and no lower, the other gently holding her hand—she had to reach up to take him by the shoulder, tall as he was, but somehow even that felt natural.

It was a good thing, too, because the Marquis de Lafayette was a god-awful dancer.

Peggy bit her bottom lip to keep from saying anything as Lafayette stepped on her foot not once but three times in the first thirty seconds of the dance. Even though she tried to hide it, he noticed every time. He winced with such self-reproach that she couldn't help but laugh.

"You dance very well, mademoiselle," he said, somewhat red in the face.

"You, Monsieur le Marquis, do not."

He laughed, startled by her frankness. "No," he agreed, "to my everlasting shame. You should have seen me the first time I was received in court. I must have stepped on the queen's toes a dozen times."

Peggy gasped. "You didn't."

He smiled, rueful, like a schoolboy. "God save me, I did. My uncle told me _sa Majesté_ Marie Antoinette walked with a limp for a week, and cursed me with every step."

His embarrassment was unreasonably charming, Peggy thought. Everything about him was charming. His ready smile, his lanky limbs, his bright eyes. The way those bright eyes were looking right into hers, and she looked back into his, saying nothing. The silence stretched. It didn't feel uncomfortable for a moment. Her eyes flicked lower, almost without thinking. He had a very fine mouth, she thought vaguely. Handsome lips.

In a rush, Peggy realized she'd been staring shamelessly and silently at this near-stranger for a full minute. She coughed, then cast her mind about for small talk.

"Where are you from, Monsieur Lafayette?" she asked.

He laughed. "Russia," he said wryly.

Peggy rolled her eyes. "I meant where in France," she replied. "It's a large country."

"Chavaniac," he said. "A tiny town, not far from Lyon. But I spent most of my life in Paris. And you?"

"I've lived here in Albany all my life," she answered, just as carelessly as he had. "It's not terribly exciting."

"Excitement is not always as desirable as it seems," he said.

"Oh? You seem to court it relentlessly."

She immediately regretted her use of the word _court_ , but Lafayette pretended not to have noticed. Although, she reasoned, it was equally possible he genuinely  _hadn't_ noticed. They had only known one another for a few short minutes, but Peggy already suspected that if she wanted Lafayette to know she was flirting with him, she'd have to shake him warmly by the hand and say "good afternoon, would you care to engage in a seduction?"

"All Frenchmen are reckless fools," Lafayette said, "and myself worse than most. My mother, while she lived, despaired completely of what to do with me."

They both realized it at the same time, the absolute crush of eyes following their motion in the ballroom. Angelica with nothing short of shock. Eliza with faint, amused curiosity. A broad-shouldered soldier she'd heard called something-or-other Mulligan, winking exaggeratedly at the Frenchman with both thumbs up. (Lafayette winked back, then pretended he hadn't.) And others, from both sides of the wedding party, watching the youngest Schuyler sister and the immigrant soldier.

Peggy had never been the subject of so much attention. At seventeen, her coming-out had been overshadowed by the ever-present threat of skirmish and armed violence. She had simply appeared on the scene, and, thanks to Lafayette, Albany was finally starting to take notice.

Lafayette grinned, suggesting a thought both thrilling and stupid. "Am I wrong in thinking you are a little reckless as well?" he asked.

"What?"

"Shall we give them a show, mademoiselle?"

She briefly remembered the fluid way she had seen him throw back a glass of wine—but no, he was as sober as she was. He was French, after all. Doubtless a well-aged merlot flowed through his veins instead of blood.

"This is my sister's wedding," she reminded him.

"And one of my closest friends is the groom," he replied lightly. "Why are we here, if not to have a little fun?"

Peggy grinned. "Here," she said, and switched their grips so that she was leading.

Lafayette stumbled. Though he'd all but suggested it, he was unprepared to suddenly switch his steps into reverse. He looked at Peggy with wide, startled eyes, but in a moment they had settled into the rhythm of the dance. She guided him easily. The orchestra had struck up a polonaise, giving her more room to flow with the rhythm, shun the prescribed steps for where the music took her. Lafayette followed infinitely better than he led, though she still had to slow her pace to accommodate him. He smiled, surrendering to her lead, close enough for her to feel his heartbeat, the warmth of his body against hers. She closed her eyes and thought perhaps they had died and this was heaven, where you could whisk away a handsome lieutenant speaking perfect French to dance all night.

But of course it could not last.

Lafayette gave her two dances, then three. As the violin let fall one last lingering note, he bowed and again pressed the back of her hand to his lips.

"Mademoiselle Schuyler, thank you for doing me the honor," he said, still smiling. "But I am beginning to notice that your father wants to have me murdered."

Peggy looked. Lafayette wasn't wrong. Philip Schuyler sat unsmiling at a table to the side of the ballroom floor, arms folded and brow lowered. He was glaring daggers at the slim silhouette of Lafayette, whose back was currently to the father of the bride.

"First Eliza, now me," she said. "It's been a difficult day for him, so many of his daughters dancing with immigrant rebels."

The way she said it, _rebels_ , it almost sounded like _heroes_. Why had she ever thought that going to war was a bad idea?

"I hope we will see each other very soon, mademoiselle," Lafayette said, still smiling with the afterglow of the dance.

And then Peggy was alone again, amid the whirl and crowd of the dance.

Only she wasn't. Not really.


	2. Albany Confidential

_18 December 1777_

Alexander was so engrossed in his half-written treatise that the knock on the door nearly stopped his heart. He flinched, and his whole arm jerked across the page, slashing his pen through the last line. He closed his eyes and let out a long, irritated breath, cracking his knuckles. There was no cause getting angry, he told himself sharply. He'd have had to recopy the whole thing regardless, before sending it to the newspapers. His first-draft handwriting was atrocious. And he owed it to Eliza to keep his temper.

Probably, he should have been spending time with her, instead of his papers. His leave would expire in four days, and he and his fellow soldiers would return to southern Pennsylvania where the rest of the army already camped for the winter. But time kept slipping through his fingers, too fast to catch the thoughts bubbling through his brain. If he didn't write now, when would he?

"Alexander?" came a familiar voice from the other side of the closed door.

Alexander's frustration immediately transformed into interest.

"Come in," he said, and pushed back his chair.

Peggy Schuyler opened the door and stood halfway in the room, regarding Alexander with a profound air of embarrassment. She wore what Alexander suspected was a new gown, a pale lavender that suited her but would have suited Angelica better. She clasped her hands behind her back. Alexander, taking in the expression on her face, couldn't help but think of firing squads.

"When I said 'come in,'" Alexander said with a grin, "I meant all the way."

She blushed and entered, closing the door behind her. "I'm sorry to bother you—"

He interrupted her with a smile. "You're not bothering me," he interrupted. "This essay is a disaster. I'm four minutes away from lighting it on fire."

"I wouldn't do that at Papa's desk," Peggy said lightly. "He disapproves of arson."

She sat on the small sofa near Alexander's bookcase. He came to sit beside her and saw, not without surprise, that her hands were trembling.

"Is everything all right?" he asked.

"Yes," she said, looking down at her hands as if willing them to still. "I'm fine. But I want you to promise me something, all right?"

"Of course."

"Don't tell Papa what I'm about to tell you."

Alexander gaped at her, astonished. Peggy had taken to confiding in him since the early days of his courtship with Eliza. Idle worries, small gossip, little things she couldn't tell her sisters. But she'd never sworn him to secrecy before. And she'd never fidgeted like this before telling him a secret, with the wild paranoia of an enemy spy. Had Peggy killed a man, or eloped with General Cornwallis? He couldn't think of anything else that would make her act this way.

The intrigue, of course, made him wildly curious. Mankind hadn't yet invented a dangerous, risky situation Alexander Hamilton didn't want to be involved in.

"Of course not." He leaned forward and took both her hands in his. "I won't tell anyone. Not even Eliza."

Another pause, in which Peggy was clearly gathering up her courage, and then she blurted it out ungracefully. "How well do you know Monsieur Lafayette?" she asked too loudly.

Alexander's jaw dropped.

_Well._

That clarified matters.

"As well as I know anyone," he said, fighting a losing battle to keep a knowing smirk from his face—an unattractive habit Eliza had told him a thousand times to break. "Why?"

He knew perfectly well why, but the two percent of his personality capable of sustaining skepticism wanted to hear her confirm it.

"Is he…is he a good man?" Peggy asked. 

Her innocence tugged at Alexander's heart. She thought she was being subtle, the dear girl. She thought Alexander didn't know exactly what she meant. He grinned and plunged forward. He was about to embarrass the living hell out of his new sister-in-law, but at least it would spare her from having to ask a more direct question.

"The best," Alexander said. "He's smart. Brave. So idealistic I wonder how he doesn't die of shock every time a man lies to him. And," he finished slyly, "talk in the town says, he's not bad in bed either."

Peggy succumbed to a sharp, sudden, and irrepressible fit of coughing.

Alexander threw back his head and laughed. "I'm joking, Peggy. Love of God. No, I'll stake my fortune the only man Lafayette will take to bed is his wife."

It was a sign of Peggy's interest in the topic at hand that she didn't point out Alexander's fortune was, in fact, entirely the Schuyler fortune. "He isn't married, is he?" she asked quickly.

"Lafayette?" Alexander said, one eyebrow raised. "Unless he has a secret wife stashed away in Poland somewhere, I doubt it."

"He's European," Peggy said matter-of-factly, as if Alexander could possibly have forgotten. "Could he be engaged? Don't they do things differently?"

"It's possible," Alexander conceded with a careless shrug, "the way Charles Lee amounting to anything useful is possible. But I think the French frown on clandestine marriages too, Peggy, love."

Peggy's smile stretched so wide Alexander wondered how it even fit on her face. He wanted to laugh, but there was something charming in Peggy's earnestness that made it all but impossible to ridicule her. Had Alexander himself been this ridiculous when he'd started writing letters to Eliza? No doubt he had. God only knew what painfully sentimental garbage he'd subjected his friends to during those wild weeks. It was only fair he took his turn on the other side of things.

"If you're asking for my blessing to pursue young Charlemagne, Peggy, you have it. You could do worse. Eliza did."

Alexander had never seen Peggy look so conspiratorial. For a moment, her face looked completely unfamiliar to him. That grin belonged on the face of an older, much more experienced woman. "Honestly, Alexander?" she said. "I don't think I need to do much pursuing."

Alexander blinked twice. "I _beg_ your pardon?"

Peggy clicked her tongue. "There's no need to sound so surprised," she said. "That's a bit rude."

Alexander snapped his mouth shut and let her continue.

"Since the night of your wedding, we've met a few times—in public, nothing inappropriate, of course—"

"Of course." The idea of Lafayette attempting an affront on Peggy's virtue was frankly ridiculous.

"Only a few salons of friends, a play or two. He's…he's written me poetry," she admitted, the blush beginning to creep back.

Alexander choked on a laugh. "Lafayette wrote you _poetry_?" he repeated. God, the brilliant absurdity of it all. Lafayette sighing in a rose garden writing love sonnets. The brilliant tactician, the irrepressible revolutionary, the young Marquis de Lafayette, overthrown by the Albany charms of little Peggy Schuyler?

"Don't you  _dare_ tell him I told you," Peggy said fiercely. "They're...they're very nice," she said, trailing off with another blush.

Perhaps it wasn't so ridiculous, Alexander mused. Peggy was only two years younger than Eliza, and Lafayette three younger than Alexander. Nineteen and twenty-two. It made perfect sense. He tall and enthusiastic, dashing in his lieutenant's brass and Paris-twisted English. She bright-eyed and clever, with the lighthearted recklessness of a younger daughter. A pair of children, really. In some ways, their innocence made Alexander feel stooped and jaded before his time.

It was absurd, that Lafayette should be Alexander's brother-in-law as well as brother-in-arms. But at the same time, once he'd thought of it, it couldn't be more obvious.

"Why are you telling me this, Peggy?" he asked kindly. "He's one of my closest friends. You must have known I wouldn't object."

"I had to tell someone," she admitted—Alexander grinned at her barely stifled enthusiasm. "And if…well, if he does make me an offer, I wanted to know I wouldn't be a fool to accept."

Alexander laid a reassuring hand on Peggy's. "There's not a man alive I'd wish for you more than Lafayette," he said. "And you tell him you'd best marry soon. Someone needs to keep that crazy idiot in line."

 

* * *

 

Alexander's leave passed far too quickly. There was never enough time to finish what he'd started. He still had essays to write, relatives of Eliza's he hadn't met, hours of sleep he hadn't had, a marital bed he'd barely enjoyed. But the war wouldn't wait. He, Lafayette, Burr, Mulligan, and Laurens were due to depart Albany to rejoin the rest of their company, at the Continental Army's winter camp at Valley Forge.

He'd go, of course. He'd miss his wife, but the call of military glory itched always at the back of his mind. He could no more give up his dreams of greatness than he could stop writing, or stop breathing.

But his redeployment would have to wait until he'd had one conversation, with one very specific man.

He dashed off a quick invitation and had one of Eliza's servants send it to the boarding-house where Lafayette was staying for the week, on the other side of town. Not an hour later, he received a quick reply, written in Lafayette's stilted English, accepting his invitation to the Cross and Crown at eight o'clock that evening. Bidding a hasty—and non-specific—farewell to his wife, Alexander buttoned his coat to his chin and ducked out into the street, walking quickly against the snow.

It wasn't that he was trying to keep secrets from his wife. But after the whirl and pageantry of his wedding, Alexander found himself in the mood for something dingy and vaguely disreputable. He missed this tavern atmosphere: the hot, close air, the slurred voices too loud for the space, the occasional snatch of song or flurry of confrontation. It reminded him of Princeton, in the hazy rush of excitement before the war. Eliza didn't like him spending his evenings here, but he shrugged off her concern. Of all the immoral things he could be doing—and her father certainly suspected him of most of them—this was a minor sin.

Alexander entered the tavern, the sudden wash of heat melting the snow from his shoulders. Lafayette was already waiting for him, drinking at a table in the corner, far from the door and the wind. He grinned as Alexander approached and gestured at the innkeeper to bring another drink.

"American beer is pathetic," Lafayette said.

"Hello to you too," Alexander said. He slipped off his coat and took the open seat at the table.

"Even the Spaniards have the civility to produce a decent bottle of wine," Lafayette said, scowling at his pint glass. "If this is the best you can drink, Alexander, I'm not certain you deserve your independence."

"Uncivilized brutes to the end," Alexander agreed, taking his pint from the innkeeper and throwing a third of it back. "You should see the wonders we can do with gravy."

Lafayette winced and took a drink, grimacing slightly at the end. "Gravy," he repeated with horror. " _Seigneur Jésus,_ spare me that."

Alexander grinned, clapping his friend brightly on the shoulder. "Do you know," he said, sloshing his own beer thoughtfully against the glass as if he didn't care at all how Lafayette responded to his remark. "I was in my study yesterday writing a new essay—"

Lafayette groaned. " _Another_ essay.  _Nom de Dieu,_ Alexander."

"—And I had an interesting visitor come by," Alexander continued, as if Lafayette hadn't interrupted.

"Did you?"

"I did."

"From the way you insist on building suspense, I assume it was General Howe," Lafayette drawled, his accent enhancing the sarcasm.

"In fact, it was Peggy."

Lafayette turned very pale and set his glass cautiously back on the table. "Oh?" His voice, Alexander noted with an inner smile, was not usually that high.

"She told me the most interesting story. Something about poetry, I believe?"

It shouldn't have given Alexander as much pleasure as it did, watching the young marquis squirm under the question. Lafayette looked utterly at a loss, both for what to say and what on Earth to do with his hands. He toyed with the handle of his glass for a moment, folded and unfolded his hands, before flexing his fingers as if to reprimand them for fumbling about in this undignified way. Alexander had seen Lafayette awkward a hundred times, had watched him stammer his way through meeting General Washington like a nervous friar meeting Christ the Lord, but it had never been as bad as this.

"I…" Lafayette stuttered, "I am sure that...I promise you, Alexander, I never meant, I didn't, I mean to say, I'm sorry that…"

"What the devil are you apologizing to me for?" Alexander asked, grinning. "She couldn't do better than you. No one could."

Relief flooded Lafayette's face, followed closely by the faintest trace of irritation. " _V_ _a te faire foutre, fils de pute_ ," he snapped, shoving his glass back across the table. "I thought you were about to challenge me to a duel."

Alexander pressed one hand to his heart, feigning mortal offense. "What kind of unhinged fool do you take me for?"

Lafayette arched an eyebrow. "Did you not challenge John Jay to a duel yesterday for failing to hold a door open for you?"

Alexander took a long drink of beer and avoided the question.

Lafayette sighed—what exactly he was looking at was unclear, but it was clearly not in the room. "Alexander," he confessed, "I've never met anyone as fascinating as Peggy Schuyler."

"You've met the _Queen of France_ , Lancelot."

"Yes, yes, I know," Lafayette said, dismissing this fact with a tetchy flick of one hand. "But Peggy. She is everything I've ever wanted. She is much more than I deserve. And after the wars, perhaps, perhaps then I might..." He trailed off, taking a drink of his beer. He winced again, as if he'd forgotten anew how terrible it was.

Between the low thrum of conversation in the Cross and Crown and Lafayette's general discomfort with the correct way to pluralize English nouns, it took Alexander a moment to realize what the marquis had actually said. At last, it connected. He set down his glass, regarding his friend thoughtfully.

" _Wars_?" he repeated.

The smile faded from Lafayette's face. He took a long drink—at this stage in his thoughts, it appeared, any intoxicant would do.

"You can't expect me to abandon my own revolution," he said. "After yours, mine."

Alexander sighed. He'd heard Lafayette go on this way before. Whenever he warmed to the subject of liberty, democracy, equality, his eyes always turned toward the east, as if he could make out the palace of Versailles winking mockingly at him from across the ocean. Of course he would be thinking of that now. A man with two hopeless revolutions to fight couldn't risk planning more than two weeks ahead.

Small wonder Alexander could never keep Lafayette's age straight in his mind. Writing a woman convoluted love poems like a heartsick teenager one moment, and then in the next sacrificing everything for his friends and his country like a world-weary patriot of fifty. But still, Alexander thought, Lafayette might allow himself a _moment_ of happiness, surely.

Lafayette sighed and leaned back, tipping his chair on its rear two legs so he could rest the back of his head against the wall. Eyes closed, he seemed to be considering the mysteries of the universe. "I think I love her, Alexander," he said.

"Damned inconvenient," Alexander said.

Lafayette raised his glass in an ironic toast, then drained it and set it back on the table. "Peggy will be happier without me," he said at last. "She'll find another man. Better."

Alexander began to say something, then fell silent. It was up to Peggy to decide whether she could afford to wait for her idealistic immigrant lieutenant, or if there were more convenient husbands to be had on this side of the Atlantic. Much as he longed to interfere—and certainly, since his arrival in New York, he had not been known for keeping his opinions to himself—it was not his place, and in the end, not his decision.

"Peggy's a smart woman," he replied. "If you tell her what you've told me, I'm sure you two will do the smart thing."

Lafayette sighed. "Alexander, have either you or I ever done the smart thing?"

Alexander shrugged and gestured to the innkeeper for another round. "Not once."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note 1: Comments and kudos breathe life into my soul, and if you wanted to leave me one or both, you'll make my day.
> 
> Note 2: Don't use this story as a primary source for your American History research paper, because my timeline is about to go to hell in a handbasket.


	3. Winter of Discontent

_27 January 1778_

Every day, Lafayette thought it was impossible for the world to get any colder. Every day, Valley Forge proved him wrong.

The wind sailed through the trees, bitter and brutal. It whipped the weak tongues of the sporadic campfires higher, then lower again, simmering like earthbound sunsets. Above, a crisp winter sky hung clear and sparkling with stars. For the first night in many nights, it wasn't snowing. Nothing to deal with now but the six inches already blanketing the camp, soaking through Lafayette's boots, stealing the life from him.

He wrapped his coat tight around him, and a long sigh spilled in a translucent cloud from his lungs toward the stars. The warmth and revelry of Albany felt like a fever dream. Had he ever really been warm? Nothing felt less likely.

Laurens stretched his stiff fingers over the weakening fire and glanced at Lafayette with a smile. How the good humor hadn't been frozen out of his bones was a mystery. "Do they have winters like this in France, Lancelot?" he teased.

"No," Lafayette said. "This damn cold is uncivilized."

"After the war," Laurens went on, "I'll take you to Long Island on a Friday night, around sundown. Man like you, with your accent and that scar, you'll be warm enough. We'll have to beat the women away from you with a stick."

Without thinking, Lafayette brought one hand to the thin white ridge along his right cheekbone. The scar was new since Saratoga, and it still didn't sit naturally with him. Stupid, really, to worry about something as shallow as how he looked. He'd never been that good-looking. Gangly and awkward. No great catch by any means. Still. A man was allowed a little vanity, even in the dead of winter.

"If you leave any women for me," he said. "I remember how you were the night of Alexander's wedding. How many was it, four?"

Laurens winked. "Three women," he said. "We'll say nothing of the men."

Lafayette laughed, but he wasn't really listening. This conversation belonged at a Princeton tavern, or in some underground café in Saint-Denis, not here. But Laurens wasn't really speaking to Lafayette. John wasn't a lieutenant colonel for nothing; he knew what it took to bring a battalion of men through the winter. This pointless conversation was to give the eight other men pressed close around the fire something else to listen to. Eight silent shadows who, at least for a moment, could ignore the screaming of their stomachs and the cracking of frostbitten flesh.

This pointless conversation wouldn't take away the blood Laurens had coughed onto the snow. It wouldn't erase the hollows in Lafayette's face, emptying out his cheeks. But if nothing else, the men could see their commanders. Hear them. They knew that, superior officers or not, Lafayette and Laurens were there, freezing, surviving, the same as anyone else.

Later that night, when Lafayette collapsed into his bunk, maybe he'd allow the tears he felt building behind his eyes to fall, freezing against his scar.

But not yet.

Tonight, he'd trade stories with Laurens. He'd tell about the time he, fifteen and roaring drunk, had scaled to the top of the Hôtel de Ville and pissed off the edge directly onto the hat of the passing Lord Chief Justice. And he would listen to Laurens' youthful exploits on his father's South Carolina estate, something with a pair of hunting hounds and his governess's undergarments—

"Monsieur Lafayette?"

Lafayette winced. No one in this country knew how to say his name right, but that had been even worse than usual. He turned to see a young boy, shivering in a too-large coat, just outside the circle of firelight.

"Yes?" Lafayette asked, rising. Of course, he already knew exactly what.

"The general sent for you, sir."

Lafayette nodded with a smile. " _Merci_ ," he said. Sometimes he wondered whether speaking English left the Continental Army feeling shortchanged, like they hadn't gotten the foreigner they'd been promised. "Here. Take my place."

The boy didn't thank him. He dropped onto the stump Lafayette had abandoned and leaned toward the fire. Lafayette shrugged his hands up into the cuffs of his sleeves and left the circle of light, weaving his way around soldiers toward Washington's quarters. He noted, distantly, that his booted feet barely left footprints in the snow. He must have lost more weight than he thought.

Washington's cabin stood dead center in the camp, rich golden light spilling through its windows and beneath the door. It looked like Lafayette imagined the gates of heaven would look. He stopped in front of the door, facing down two members of Washington's personal guard. They hesitated, sizing him up, unsure. Most likely, they didn't even recognize him. The winter had changed everyone, and Lafayette was no exception.

"If I might, gentlemen," he said.

He smirked, catching the understanding that dawned in their eyes. It would take more than a year and a half of war to mask his accent. The guard stepped aside, and Lafayette pulled the door open and stepped into the cabin.

The heat was sudden, shockingly sudden. The well-constructed wooden walls shielded the general's quarters from the harsh wind, and twin fires crackled pleasantly in opposite grates. Lafayette winced and eased his hands out of his sleeves, massaging the stinging pain out of his fingers. For the first time in what felt like years, he could breathe normally.

At the table, a tall, broad-shouldered man stood with his back to Lafayette. A large map of Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey was unfurled on the table in front of him.

Lafayette coughed. "You called, sir?" he said.

Washington turned away from the map. The smile melted from his face as quickly as the frost from Lafayette's hair. "Dear God, man," he said frankly, "are you ill?"

Lafayette laughed. "Find me a man in this camp who isn't ill, and I have a château I can sell you," he said drily. "What do you need?"

But if Washington had a reason for summoning his immigrant lieutenant, he'd completely forgotten it.

"For God's sake, sit down," he said, and drew out a chair from the table. "Let me get you a drink. The wine is long gone, of course, but a mouthful of cognac, to warm you…"

"There's no need," Lafayette said impatiently, though he did sink rather heavily into the chair.

The general sat opposite him, looking on with the solicitous disapproval of a father whose son has found a new and surprising way of disappointing him. Seated, Washington's extra two inches of height weren't as noticeable, but no angle could hide that he now outweighed Lafayette by some forty pounds. Lafayette felt more like a child before him than ever, dwarfed in body as well as presence. God, how he wished he was older.

"What foolishness have you done now?" Washington asked. "Surely your quarters and rations are better than this."

"My quarters are now a hospital," Lafayette said. "Lieutenant Colonel Laurens and I bunk with the men."

Washington blinked—incidentally, the same reaction Lafayette got when he first told Colonel Burr about his plan to give up his private cabin. "But—"

"This war doesn't depend on whether I sleep warm at night," Lafayette said patiently.

Washington had a quiverfull of protests ready to make, that much was clear, but Lafayette was entirely through listening.

"You asked me here for a reason, yes?" he interrupted.

Washington was silent a moment. Some paternal instinct urged him to say something more severe, but Washington was a good general. He could spot a losing battle when he saw one.

"Yes," Washington said. "I trust your tactical insight more than almost anyone in this camp."

Lafayette raised his eyebrows and kicked both feet up on the table. The heels of his boots left a small, damp smudge somewhere near Monmouth, New Jersey. " _Almost_ anyone? Please, introduce me to your most brilliant tactician. I can't have met him."

Washington didn't blink. "I'll present you to General Von Steuben in the morning," he said, and shoved Lafayette's feet back off the table.

Lafayette choked on nothing. "That blowhard German?" he began.

Washington silenced him with a look. "I have the beginning of a plan," he said loudly, "regarding the British encampment at Trenton. It's a risk, but if we move before February, with the element of…"

But Lafayette already shook his head, without so much looking at the map.

Washington pursed his lips. "If you're going to dismiss me," he said tightly, "at least do it with words."

"I see what you mean," Lafayette said. He sketched the plan across the map with two fingers, walking them across the New Jersey plains like a giant crossing the country. "Have Lee bring a battalion upriver, wait in the bay, then surround the encampment after nightfall. It's a good plan."

"And our job is to execute plans when they're good."

Lafayette looked up from the map, eyes boring into Washington. "The men cannot bear it."

"Surely they—"

Lafayette didn't mean to do it. He didn't have a temper, usually, and Washington had welcomed him so generously he would rather have died than disappointed the general. But he couldn't stop seeing the red patch of blood Laurens had coughed out onto the snow, or the hollow look in the boy's eyes as he entered the circle of firelight.

He slammed an open palm on the desk with a crack. "They are _dying,_ " he hissed. "I've seen it. Don't tell me what they can bear."

Washington had drawn back at Lafayette's unexpected outburst. His surprise had been sharp, but brief. Now, his gaze was steely. "I'm still your commander, Major."

"And I'm your officer. My job is to tell you the truth."

The silence hung cold for a moment. At last, Washington let out a small sigh and pushed one hand backward through his close-cut hair. Lafayette, sensing he had won, leaned back from the table.

"What would you have me do?" Washington asked quietly. Lafayette had never heard him sound so desperately in need of advice.

"Let the men see you," Lafayette said. "Speak with you. Let them know you remember them."

"In other words, what you and Laurens are doing."

Lafayette nodded. He rose unsteadily, testing how well his legs would support him. The experiment wasn't reassuring. Washington half-rose, intending to offer Lafayette his arm, but seemed to think better of it.

"Is there anything else?" Lafayette asked.

Washington didn't quite meet his eyes. "Have the French responded to our request for reinforcements?"

Lafayette's smirk was more sarcastic than he intended. "If France sends a message, general, I think it will be addressed to you."

Washington's face remained impassive. "Nothing else, then."

Lafayette bowed, then ducked back through the door and into the frigid night.

Washington's boy didn't relinquish the seat by the fire when Lafayette returned, but then, he hadn't really expected that. He turned away from the firelight, wandering toward the outskirts of camp. Drawn, haunted faces loomed out of the darkness on either side, cast in orange by the flames. His mind filled with images of demons, lurking in the shadows of the Pennsylvania woods, but he shook his head.

Don't think of hell, he told himself sharply. Now wasn't the time to lose his mind. Not until the war was won. Not until he'd spoken again to her—

No.

He wouldn't think of that either.

Lafayette had taken leave to attend Alexander's wedding in Albany, hoping that a brief flash of joy would make the cold winter easier to take. It might have been easier to spend the whole season starving at Valley Forge. At least then he wouldn't have known what he was giving up.

What was happening to him? It wasn't dignified. It wasn't honorable. It wasn't even  _rational._

Lafayette had known Peggy Schuyler a week. Less, even. Why did it feel like he'd known her all his life? And there was still so much more he could have learned, so much they had to talk about. He wanted to know everything about her, every dream, every wish, every memory. He wanted to absorb her and be absorbed by her, until it was anyone's guess where the Marquis de Lafayette ended and the fiery young Peggy Schuyler began. He'd never wanted anything so badly in his life. Not freedom, not revolution, not respect, not a military command, nothing.

Frankly, it frightened him.

"Major General," came an unexpected voice from behind him.

Lafayette flinched so badly he lost his footing in the snow and fell hard.

His face flushed hot; why couldn't he behave like a dignified human, at least for fifteen minutes? His hip ached from his ungraceful landing, but he'd had worse. Probably nothing more than a bruise. He picked himself up and brushed the snow from his trousers, then turned. From beside a nearby watchfire, a slim, black-eyed man watched Lafayette with a superior-looking smirk on his lips. The shoulders of his greatcoat sparkled with the star of a brigadier general. His eyes were intelligent, insightful, and not exactly what one would call kind. The flush in Lafayette's face burned hotter. Of all the people he didn't want to have seen that.

"Burr," Lafayette said lightly, trying to swallow his embarrassment. "I see you've been promoted."

Aaron Burr glanced down at his uniform and laughed. "No, I found a better coat. I'm not going to freeze to death on account of rank."

"Keep an eye open," Lafayette replied. "General Conway is dying for a chance to discharge you."

"I wish they _would_ court-martial me," Burr said, eyes twinkling with gallows humor. "Hang me, even. It's warm in hell."

Valley Forge was half a step up from hell, but Lafayette saw his point.

They had walked a few steps away from the fire now. Less hospitable, but also less chance of being overheard. Burr shrugged his coat closer and glanced over his shoulder. Soldiers scattered the camp on all sides, but no one paid them any attention. Lafayette said nothing, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Aaron Burr wasn't the kind of man to make small talk. He wanted something. He always did.

"Can I be frank with you, Major General?" Burr said, sure enough.

Lafayette shifted his weight to the opposite leg and rolled his eyes. "Burr, you're  _infuriating._ "

"What?"

"I have a name," Lafayette said. "Use it."

Burr smirked—probably he thought it was a smile, but he wasn't particularly good at controlling what his face was doing. "Lafayette, then. I have a proposition for you."

Lafayette raised an eyebrow. A proposition? Knowing Burr, it could have been anything from joining his weekly poker game to leading an armed coup against Mexico. "I'm intrigued."

"I have an engagement tomorrow evening, at a house not far from here. A social gathering, among friends. I thought you might like to join me."

Lafayette's grasp of English must have been even worse than he thought. Because Burr surely couldn't have said _that._

"An engagement?" Lafayette repeated. "We're freezing to death, who in God's name are you giving your calling card?"

Burr's smirk turned conspiratorial. "A local officer. Well, a local officer's wife."

Oh.

Of course. Lafayette would have laughed, if Burr's delicate pride had not been at stake.

"If you're offering me the chance to meet your radiant Theodosia…"

Burr flinched in surprise. "Who told you—"

"Burr, you aren't as subtle as you think," Lafayette said with a grin. "Are you inviting me so I can make your excuses to the general?"

Plainly, from the sheepish expression on Burr's face, this was exactly it.

"General Washington trusts you with his life," Burr said, defensive. "If you and I disappeared together for a few hours, no one would dare—"

Lafayette held up a hand, silencing him. Aaron Burr, recklessly asking favors of Lafayette? It was odd, improbable even. But one look into Burr's eyes as he tried to talk his way into spending an evening with Theodosia, and it was obvious Burr would have dared anything to see her. It was unsettling, from the stoic, closed-book Burr.

"I'll make your excuses to the general," Lafayette said, grinning at the look of rapture that crossed Burr's face. "But, my apologies, I have to decline your invitation."

"You're waiting for someone else," Burr said, as though nothing could be more obvious. "Someone in France."

So close, Colonel Burr. And yet so tragically far.

"Forgive me, Burr," Lafayette said. "I'm still allowed some secrets. Now," he added coolly, "I have a letter to write. Before I lose too much moonlight."

Burr nodded. He had no reason to push his luck, not after he'd gotten exactly what he wanted. "Good night, then," he said, and stepped aside.

Lafayette wove his way through the camp to the wide, drafty hut that served as barracks for thirty men. Doubtless Burr would spend the rest of the night daydreaming about Theodosia. What he'd say to her, how she'd look, what they'd do. Well, he was welcome to the distraction, Lafayette thought.

It was early still, not long past ten, and the barracks were nearly empty. Lafayette heard the wind whistling through the cracks in the walls. Still, three soldiers had fallen asleep anyway, nestled in moth-eaten blankets. The moon through the doorway lent just enough light to see. Enough to write, if Lafayette could force his hands to do it. But he didn't reach into the pack beside his bunk, didn't retrieve the pen and paper he'd stowed there.

He couldn't bring himself to write to Peggy. He had no idea what to say.

What did Peggy Schuyler care about army life? Why would she care about him at all? Would she have any interest in him, if she saw him now? A ragged ghost, insubstantial as the wind. Not the kind of man someone like Peggy could love.

He'd promised to write to her, had kissed her hand and sworn he'd write weekly.

He was a liar, among other things. And a coward.

Lafayette curled up beneath the blanket, not removing either his coat or boots. The bed seemed even colder than the air outside. Still, the longer he lay there, still as death, the more of his body heat seeped into the blanket. At last, he drifted into a light, restless sleep.

He rarely slept well enough to dream.

Every time he did, he dreamed of Peggy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! We'll be back to Peggy in the next chapter... Drop a kudo if you like, a comment if you're feeling fancy.


	4. Seven French Ships

_28 January 1778_

Behind the pale green curtains covering the picture window, snow continued to fall over Albany. The fire in the dining-room grate had been spitting disconsolately for several long minutes, on the brink of death, but Peggy ignored it. There was enough heat left in the house to get by. And in any case, she hadn't set up shop in the dining-room after dark because it was comfortable.

Her project had grown too expansive to fit on her father's desk in his study. The work now sprawled across the long chestnut dining table. In happier times, it might have hosted a dinner party for sixteen; tonight, Peggy had the room to herself. Before her lay an unfurled map of shipping routes between New York, Virginia, London, Madrid, and the West Indies, trade paths and hazardous waters annotated in Philip Schuyler's oppressively neat hand. She had added markings of her own—harsh black crosses along the coastline, marking the location of the British blockade. A pile of some twenty pages sat beside the map, notarized letters adorned with signets and seals, and a leather ledger-book with two columns of precise figures.

Frowning, Peggy dipped her pen into the inkwell, then added a few more entries into the left-hand column, keeping a running tally in her head as she worked. The only sounds in the silent room were the scratching of the pen, the dull sputtering of the fire…

And after a moment, the creak of the door, and the swish of skirts against the floorboards.

Peggy didn't look. She kept her eyes on the numbers, rapidly adding and subtracting in her head. It took nearly a minute until she scratched a neat total at the bottom of the page and glanced up. Angelica sat across the table from her, head cocked to the side, watching with faint amusement.

She set the pen aside. Peggy loved her eldest sister, of course, but there was something disconcerting about being watched by her. The sense of never quite measuring up, although of course Angelica had never said anything of the kind.

"You look just like Father when you do that," Angelica said. "He'd always finish his row of sums before he looked at me."

"It's not easy keeping that many numbers in your head at once."

"I know," Angelica said with a grin. "That's why you're the one doing it." She looked at the dying fire with an air of disapproval and rose to stoke it herself, gently prodding the logs with the iron poker. "How've we come out this week?"

Peggy shrugged. An unladylike habit, their father always said, but then so was accounting. "Not ideal," she said.

"What does 'not ideal' mean, exactly?"

Peggy sighed and tilted her head back toward the ceiling. "None of Father's ships can get in or out with cargo, thanks to the blockade. Which means we're coming out at a loss."

Angelica straightened up to eye her sister warily. "How much of a loss?"

Peggy's grim expression was enough to answer the question. "There are things we could try to get around the redcoats," she said, turning back to the map. But the words lacked conviction. Of course there were things they could try. She could take a trip to Long Island and hire a fleet of pirates to sink the blockade. She could try to fly over the masts of the Royal Navy herself, for all the good these _could_ s would do them.

Peggy pushed her chair back and put both hands to her head. She'd always been good with business, had helped their father manage his accounts when he fell ill or was too busy to bother. But there was a limit to what she could do. She couldn't make something out of nothing.

Nothing, that was, but headaches.

Angelica laid a hand on her shoulder, to Peggy's manifest surprise. She'd never looked for intimacy from her oldest sister. Not that Angelica wasn't capable of it; Peggy just wasn't usually its target. Maybe the war had changed both of them.

"It'll come out all right in the end," Angelica said, not specifying what would, or how. "I've been speaking with Mr. Hale, Father's supplier. He's agreed to waive our interest payments until after the war."

"That's something."

It was. Barely.

Angelica squeezed Peggy's shoulder before standing up. "I'm going to check in on Eliza," she said.

Peggy winced. She should've been the one to suggest it. Eliza grew more depressed every day the winter went on. A reaction Peggy could understand, whether or not her sisters knew it.

"I have a few more things to finish tonight," Peggy said, avoiding Angelica's eye in favor of the neat columns of numbers.

Angelica frowned. The pause lasted only a moment, before it was broken by a smile so transparent Peggy could have read the daily newspaper through it. "Don't work too much later," Angelica said. "You and I have a meeting with Mr. Sheridan from the dockyard in the morning."

Peggy swore loudly. "That's not tomorrow, is it?"

Angelica smirked. "I'm afraid it is. You look thrilled."

"I hate that man, Angelica."

Angelica laughed. "Why? Because he smells like a barrel of salt cod?"

"No." Peggy grimaced. "He made a pass at me the last time he was here. Tried to stick his hand—"

"He _didn't._ "

"He did. I'd have dunked his head in the rain barrel if Father hadn't warned me to be polite."

Angelica grinned, halfway to the door. "Well, for better or worse, Father isn't here. And if Sheridan tries anything tomorrow, I'll drop the old codfish in the harbor myself like a crate of tea, see if I won't."

Peggy laughed, a brief burst of laughter she suppressed almost at once. Was it legal to laugh during wartime? Somehow it felt like she was getting away with something.

"Go easy tonight," Angelica said. And she left, leaving Peggy alone among numbers and maps.

She shook her aching head and pushed the map away. The British blockade had been methodically built, each vessel placed to throttle the coast, and it was doing exactly that. A terrible time for the family business to be quartermastering. An even worse time for the man you cared about to be an officer in the rebel army.

Peggy stood up and pulled aside the curtain to look out at the snowy street beyond. It was quiet. Swirling gusts of wind whipped the deserted streetcorners, sparkling through with snowflakes that gleamed like gems. She wasn't sure what she expected to see. It was January, the mercury dropping farther past freezing every minute, and after ten o'clock in the evening besides. No one in their right mind would be outside. And yet she almost thought that if she looked long enough, he might appear, a darkened figure materializing out of the storm, snow-white smile luminous against the night…

_No. Don't be ridiculous._

She let the curtain fall back against the window. She was being silly. Lafayette was in Pennsylvania. And Peggy had work to do.

She hadn't taken more than two steps back toward the ledger before she heard the sound of the door opening without a knock.

Her heart in her throat, Peggy saw the stocky, unfamiliar man in the patched overcoat now standing in the dining room, and realized three things at the exact same time.

First, a pack of thieves had found out that Philip Schuyler's house was undefended.

Second, the only thing standing between Peggy and certain robbery, probable murder, was Peggy herself.

And third, she had no intention of getting murdered that particular evening.

Peggy lunged to the fireplace. She seized the still-hot poker and held it dead at the man's heart like a saber. She didn't know what she was doing, had never so much as considered turning a sword on another person, but her grip was strong.

"Come one step closer and I swear I'll run you through." Her voice was as steady as her arm.

The man raised both hands in alarm. "That's the thanks I get for coming to see you? Alexander didn't mention all Schuylers were madwomen."

The poker in Peggy's hand dropped a few inches. "Alexander?"

"Hamilton. Maybe you've heard of him?"

Peggy set the poker somewhat sheepishly beside the hearth. Just as well she hadn't needed to stab the man through the heart. The poker was hardly sharp enough to do the job. "Do I know you, sir?" she asked.

The man looked at her with the indignant expression of someone who took great pride in needing no introduction. "Hercules Mulligan," he said. "A friend of your husband's."

Peggy flinched. All the color soared to her face. Was he mocking her? _A friend of your husband's._ If he knew Alexander, he must have known Lafayette. Would have known what the Frenchman had told her before he returned to camp. Would have known…

_Do_ not _think about that now, Peggy. For God's sake._

"What husband?" she asked curtly.

Mulligan frowned. "You're Eliza Hamilton?"

The anger drained from Peggy immediately. She'd thought the days of being called by her sisters' names would have to end at some point. Maybe not. "Her sister. Peggy."

Mulligan dropped an apologetic, sarcastic bow. "Forgive me. Alexander didn't mention there were two incredibly beautiful Schuyler sisters."

Peggy rolled her eyes. Having seen the way Angelica and Alexander stared at one another like lovesick adolescents, she didn't believe that for a second. She sat again at the table, folding her hands in front of her. It was a studied pose, one she'd seen her father use during business meetings three dozen times. Mulligan remained standing, and even stood up a little straighter. Perhaps her attempts to look intimidating were working after all.

"My sister is indisposed, Mr. Mulligan," Peggy said. "If you have a message for her, I'll see it's delivered."

Mulligan paused a moment, before reaching into his pocket and producing a sealed letter. It could only have come from Alexander. The envelope was practically bursting at the seams. There had to be at least six pieces of paper crammed into it.

_Lafayette's never written to you that way. He's never written to you at all._

_Didn't you hear me, brain? I said not now._

Peggy took Mulligan's letter with a small nod of thanks. After the war, she'd have plenty of time for self-pity. Message delivered, Mulligan's eyes passed over the map of the coastline still spread uselessly across the table.

"What's this?" he asked, squinting slightly.

"The British blockade. I'm managing my father's shipping company while he's away."

"Is that right?"

Peggy had hoped Mulligan would leave as soon as his job was done, but he sat down opposite her, leaning closer to the map. He frowned, considering the tiny crosses marking the location of ships. Peggy edged back in her seat. She no longer suspected Hercules Mulligan of intending to murder her, but there was such a thing as personal space.

"And if I could confirm this layout, Miss Schuyler, would that interest you?" Mulligan remarked.

Peggy stopped trying to put distance between them. _Now_ he had her attention. "I'd be more interested if you could break it," she said. "We need to pass this blockade. The army needs supplies, and our ships can't…"

"It's not your ships I'm worried about," Mulligan interrupted. "They might even let yours in, if only so they can focus on the French ones just outside the harbor."

Now _that_ was news.

"French ships?" she repeated.

Mulligan grinned like Father Christmas. "Seven of them, armed to the teeth. At Washington's disposal if he can just get at them."

"How do you…"

"I have my sources," Mulligan said. He tapped the side of his nose conspiratorially.

If his information had been less important, Peggy would have rolled her eyes. He might as well admit he was part of the Sons of Liberty, with all his suggestive winking and nose-tapping.

"Do you have a contact with the French navy?" she asked.

Mad hope flickered up briefly, but she shoved it away again. Lafayette was camped with the main branch of the Continental Army in Valley Forge. He'd told her so before he left. He couldn't possibly be involved with these French ships. He'd be no more able to reach them than Washington was.

Mulligan nodded. "One of their captains managed to make his way ashore," he said. "Lodges in a boarding-house not far from the harbor. Why?"

The question came out slightly sharper than it might have done, but Peggy wasn't at all interested in his surprise. She stood and snatched up her coat, already doing up the buttons. She looked at Mulligan with scathing impatience. What in God's name was he waiting for? Wasn't part of espionage being a man of action?

"I need you to take me to him," she said, ignoring the stunned expression on his face. "I've had an idea of how the French can break the blockade. I think your captain will want to hear the details."

 

* * *

 

The grandfather clock in the front hall had just struck one in the morning when Angelica heard a noise at the door. Hesitantly, she swung her feet out of bed, fumbling in the darkened bedroom for the gray dressing-gown she'd draped over the chair. Lighting a candle in an iron holder beside her bed, she crept silently down the stairs. It didn't occur to her to be afraid. Perhaps if she'd been more awake, it might have. For the moment, curiosity was more important.

Maybe a sisterly sixth sense tipped her off.

Holding her candle high to grow the small circle of light, Angelica saw Peggy slipping off her shoes near the door, an irrepressible smile on her face. She looked very tired, smelled slightly of tobacco and cheap beer, and a thin layer of snow had collected on the shoulders of her coat. But when she looked up and saw Angelica at the foot of the stairs, her smile broadened.

"Good morning," she said, keeping her voice quiet. "It _is_ morning now, isn't it?"

"Barely. Where have you been?"

"At a tavern downtown." Peggy laughed at the undisguised alarm flashing across her sister's face.

"With who, in God's name?" Angelica demanded.

"One of Alexander's friends, Hercules Mulligan. And"—it seemed to be all Peggy could do not to laugh out loud again, though to her credit she was trying her best to keep a straight face—"Monsieur le Comte de Rochambeau, captain of the French navy."

Angelica was so startled she nearly dropped the candle. "Have you lost your damn mind?"

"Not in the slightest," Peggy said, the glint in her eye hard as a bayonet. "But the British will, when they find out seven French ships will slip through their lines by this time tomorrow."

To that, Angelica had nothing to say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will stan for Peggy Schuyler until the end of time.
> 
> Drop a kudo or a comment if the spirit so moves you, friends!


	5. And So the Balance Shifts

Lafayette awoke to a hand on his shoulder and a blast of cold that knocked the breath from him.

He jerked upright with a gasp, his hand shooting to the side of the bed where his knife lay. Startled, Washington's young serving-boy pulled his hand back from Lafayette's shoulder. His eyes shone white and wide like a full moon.

"I'm sorry, sir, don't shoot," the boy stammered.

Lafayette sighed and closed his eyes. The panic drained from him in an instant, leaving him too tired even to ask how he was supposed to shoot the boy using a knife. He hadn't slept properly in days. And just when he'd managed to fall asleep despite the bone-numbing cold and the complaints of his stomach, this child who didn't speak a word of French came and dragged him out of a dream. And it had been a good dream, too.

"Don't apologize," Lafayette said quietly. He arched his back, feeling his stiff vertebrae pop, and gave the boy a small smile. "The general?"

"Afraid so," the boy said. "I told him you were asleep, but..."

"But the general doesn't sleep," Lafayette muttered. "I know."

He cracked his neck, then glanced toward the cabin's tiny window. A canopy of stars still shone clear through the black. The middle of the night. Judging from the position of the moon, somewhere between one and three in the morning. When Lafayette arrived at Washington's cabin, he intended to teach the general a valuable lesson. Something about how much sleep normal people needed, and when they needed it.

Making as little noise as possible, he swung his legs over and clambered out of the bottom bunk. The boy had kept his voice down, but as Lafayette glanced around the cabin, he saw there was no need to worry. The rest of the men in the barracks had slept through worse. None of them so much as twitched in their sleep as Lafayette pulled on his boots—he slept already in his coat—and led the boy through the door, and outside.

The boy had to take two steps for each of Lafayette's. "The general needs you right away," the boy said. He spoke at normal volume now. The words echoed curiously across the deserted camp.

They made an odd pair, thought Lafayette. A nineteen-year-old major general, tall and thin and awkward, wearing a uniform that must have looked ridiculous on someone so young. And a twelve-year-old boy, not yet five feet tall, swimming in an oversized greatcoat. Between the two of them, they might have made up one ordinary-sized person. Add their ages together, and they'd still barely have been old enough to command a battalion.

"Did he say what he needs?" Lafayette asked.

The boy blew on his hands to warm them. "I think he said you were needed to translate."

Lafayette choked on absolutely nothing.

"Translate?" he managed, regaining his breath, eyes watering.

The boy shrugged. "The general has a visitor," he said, as if this were the most banal thing in the world. "Well-dressed fellow, mustache and a horrible accent. He and the general can't understand a damn thing the other is saying."

If the boy was lying, surely this was the cruelest joke anyone had ever played on another person. Lafayette had written countless letters to the French court. Each more pathetic, more insistent, more desperate than the last. After so long, he'd given up hope that anyone was even reading them. It was too painful to wake up every morning and be disappointed. Even so, he felt hope rise in him, in spite of itself, a warm flame that would not be dampened.

He ran the rest of the way to Washington's quarters, leaving the boy behind. Ignoring the rules of propriety and rank, he knocked three times, then, breathless, entered the blazingly warm room, brightly lit against the midnight.

Washington looked up as he entered, with a half smile and a weary sort of relief. Happy as he was to see the general, however, Lafayette barely looked at him. His attention was all for the second man, who stood from Washington's desk as Lafayette entered. Whether this was out of deference or simple curiosity was impossible to tell. He was a small man, some six inches shorter than Lafayette, but his fierceness more than made up the difference. So did his prodigious black mustache, which winged outward in three dimensions. He nodded in Lafayette's direction, but did not speak.

As if engaged in some highly sensitive subterfuge, Washington took a few small steps toward Lafayette. "Thank the Lord you're here," he murmured in Lafayette's ear. "My French is atrocious. Help me."

French.

Lafayette had suspected as much, but there was something thrilling in hearing Washington say it. France hadn't dismissed Lafayette's pleas for French aid as the ravings of an excitable teenager. Someone had read them. Someone had listened. They'd  _sent_ someone. Which meant, which had to mean...

"Good evening, monsieur," Lafayette said in tentative French. The once-familiar sounds now felt strange in his mouth. His own language felt like a foreign tongue. It had been so long since he'd spoken it with someone who understood him easily.

From the first syllable of native French, the man laughed and offered a hand for Lafayette to shake. "Ah, you're the madcap boy-marquis?"

Lafayette winced. The man's handshake was so forceful he'd almost crushed Lafayette's knuckles. "Lafayette," he said. "Somewhat preferable to 'madcap boy-marquis.'"

The man grinned, conceding the point. "If we're dealing in titles," he said, "Comte de Rochambeau, Captain of the French Navy."

Lafayette stared as if he'd never heard of a  _ship_ , let alone the French Navy.

They'd sent a commander. Someone with power and influence, someone who mattered. Which meant, which had to mean...

"Praise God, my boy, but I'm happy to see you," Rochambeau said. "Your general's French is atrocious."

It was—Lafayette had evidence of this firsthand. Washington's vowels came out hopelessly mangled, and frankly Lafayette had never heard a worse accent. But at the moment, Lafayette wasn't sure he could manage words in any language. Still, Rochambeau did not leave him much time to worry or speculate. He took his seat again at the chair in front of the desk. Lafayette stood beside Washington, who remained seated across the wooden desk from Rochambeau.

"You are aware, General Washington," Rochambeau said, through Lafayette, "that your major general's and my countrymen are not well known for our love of the British."

"I'm quite glad to hear it," Washington replied.

Lafayette was nearly expiring with impatience. God in Heaven, why were aristocrats and superior officers _like_ this? Pleasantries and small talk, while there was a war to be won, tactics to be talked, action to be taken. His left boot was tapping incessantly against the floor of the cabin—with a tremendous force of effort, he straightened his leg. Patience. Surely he could summon up some patience for a few minutes. For this.

"But while we've always been predisposed to take your side," Rochambeau said, "traversing the British blockade took more effort than we anticipated." 

Lafayette's voice caught in his throat as he relayed the sentence. His eyes flicked over toward Washington, who regarded Rochambeau with sharp focus. Clearly he hadn't missed the meaning of the sentence either.

"So you did traverse it," Washington said carefully.

Rochambeau grinned like he'd gotten away with something. "Would I be here talking to you if we hadn't?" he asked. "Seven ships, loaded with guns, powder, and provisions. You may thank me at your leisure."

Washington, usually pure as the driven snow, swore loudly.

There was no need to translate. Lafayette had just done the same.

Seven ships.

That wasn't possible. In his wildest dreams, he'd only ever hoped for two.

Lafayette felt the corners of the room blur. Moments before fainting, he leaned back against Washington's desk, gripping the wood so tight it ached his palms. Washington reached out a hand to steady him, but Lafayette shrugged him off. He hardly felt as if he occupied his own body. 

Seven ships meant food. Guns. Powder. Enough strength to frighten the British, if not defeat them.

Hope.

Rochambeau smirked, clearly enjoying the effect of his revelation. "Three nights ago, with some help, we slipped past the blockade and into the harbor. Their cargo should be on their way to you within the week."

"You are a gift from God, Captain," Washington said.

Lafayette didn't think he imagined the tears hovering in the edges of Washington's words. He understood, if that were the case. His own emotion had swelled startlingly with him, and he felt himself on the brink of crying. Maybe it was a lack of sleep, the unusual hour, the sudden shock of it all. Or maybe it was the voice in the back of his mind, softly whispering, _You wanted to make a difference, you wanted to matter, and look. Help is here. France sent ships. The army will survive, the revolution will continue, because of you. You did that._

Rochambeau smiled. "I only wish we could have brought all our ships at once," he said apologetically.

Lafayette started visibly.

There were _more_?

Rochambeau didn't need prompting. "Five more were delayed by a skirmish near the coast. But thanks to your enchanting Albany spy, I imagine they'll be here within the week."

Lafayette froze. Washington looked at him expectantly, awaiting the rest of the sentence. But words had deserted Lafayette, in both languages.

He had a French fleet at his disposal. He had naval strength. He had reinforcements. Why wasn't that enough? Why did he need to invent new impossible hopes, just to see them dashed in a moment?

It was nothing. Nonsense. He was overtired, distracted by hunger, his nerves strained to breaking. And when Washington's boy had woken him, Lafayette had been dreaming of an Albany ballroom, and a brilliant young woman in yellow silk, and her shining smile. It was an overactive imagination. Fancy getting the better of him. Nothing more or less than that. Lafayette composed himself as best he could, then relayed the message calmly to Washington.

Washington frowned. "What do you mean?" he asked. "I have no spies in Albany."

Rochambeau didn't smile, exactly. But his sharp black eyes sparkled with a secret. He leaned back in his chair and folded his hands on his belly, relishing the anticipation of the reveal. A Frenchman through and through, Lafayette thought. A consummate taste for the dramatic.

"I assure you, General, you do," Rochambeau said. "The daughter of the city's former quartermaster came to me, proposing a most clever misdirection."

"A misdirection?" Washington asked.

Rochambeau grinned. "False colors on trading ships, to attract General Howe's attention," he said, obviously enjoying the cleverness of the scheme in retrospect. "I would never have proposed it myself. But Miss Peggy Schuyler was so well informed that I confess there remained very little for me to do."

Lafayette gave a small yelp like a dog with its tail stepped on.

Washington looked at Lafayette askance, one eyebrow raised. But Lafayette barely looked at him. He was too busy staring at Rochambeau, who regarded Lafayette with cool interest. Lafayette's reaction hadn't surprised Rochambeau in the slightest. In fact, he seemed positively delighted by it.

"She sends you her compliments most particularly, Monsieur Lafayette," he said, smirking. "And adds that, now that you're about to be better fed, you might find the strength to lift a pen and write to her once in a while."

Lafayette's face burned so hot he thought it must be melting the snow from the cabin roof.

Washington waited patiently for a translation.

If there was a more embarrassing situation in the course of human history, Lafayette could not think of it. Caught on the spot, over-tired and surprised, he couldn't even think of a lie. Red-faced, he translated Rochambeau's words in a sheepish mumble, staring down at his own boots. At least his boots were safe. His boots would never judge him.

Washington chuckled. He was half a second away from ruffling Lafayette's hair, like an indulgent uncle to his wayward eight-year-old nephew. "Well," he said instead, grinning like a schoolboy, "at least that settles any question of the young lady's affections, doesn't it, Major General?"

It did. Decidedly.

Peggy had broken the British blockade.

Peggy had outsmarted the entire Royal Navy.

Peggy wanted Lafayette to  _write to her._

He folded his hands behind his head and tilted his head up, trying without much success to compose his thoughts. It seemed impossible that someone like Peggy Schuyler could even exist. Of the two of them, she ought to have been the military officer.

When they'd parted, those weeks before in a snow-covered street in Albany, he'd held her small hands in his, unsure whether hers were trembling or his were. He'd kissed her hand until she pulled away, turning her eyes skyward as if to blink away tears. Once she'd left, he remained standing there in the street alone, and gave himself a few short seconds to weep, to feel the ache of leaving her, to feel it wholly, illogically, entirely. Since that moment, he'd hardly allowed himself to think of her. He'd been so afraid that she'd regret their courtship, that she'd consider the whole thing a mistake, that she'd reject him if he ever tried.

And while he'd remained frozen, awkward, paralyzed with self-doubt, Peggy had reached out and spoken to him as clearly as anyone could.

_For God's sake, Lafayette. Listen to me. Listen to the words I'm telling you. And do something._

"I'll deliver the news to the officers in the morning," Washington said.

Lafayette flinched—he'd entirely forgotten Washington was still there. He forced himself out of the memory, banishing the specter of Albany's rooftops glittering with icicles, the delicate snowflakes catching in Peggy's hair. He cleared his throat self-consciously, relaying the message to Rochambeau.

"Excellent," Rochambeau replied. "Now, gentlemen, it's late. General, you must be tired. And unless I much miss my guess, Major General Casanova has a letter to write."

Oh, God in Heaven.

Lafayette had spoken too soon. Having to translate suggestive comments about your personal life to your superior officer, now _that_ was the most embarrassing situation in the course of human history.

He spoke the sentence so quickly it sounded like he was speaking in tongues.

From Washington's wry smile, he'd understood every word.

"Dismissed, Major General," he said. It would've been a good show of military discipline, if that schoolboy grin hadn't been shimmering just behind his eyes.

Lafayette snapped a sharp salute, bowed to Rochambeau, and nearly bolted from the room.

The cold air, for a change, felt heavenly against his burning face. The entire world felt upended. Hope, where moments before he'd had none. The promise of a full meal, a silent stomach in just hours. The idea of a battle fought against the British with enough guns, enough ships, the potential to win.

The idea that Peggy Schuyler cared enough about him to risk everything.

Lafayette ducked back into the cabin. He barely made a sound, though the still-sleeping men were snoring too loud to notice. Back at his bunk, he ducked into the leather pack resting nearby. A moment later, he found what he was looking for. A creased piece of paper, a pen—slightly cracked by now, but he'd written with worse—and a half-empty inkwell. Drifting like a figure in a dream, he left again, closing the door behind him. The stars twinkled softly above him, lighting his way. They reminded him oddly of Washington's smile, at once indulgent and celestial.

A small watchfire still smoldered in its shallow pit between two of the cabins. Lafayette nudged at the weak flames with a stick until the fire flared back into life, shedding just enough light to see by. He perched near it on a rock that kept him mostly dry from the snow. Then he crossed his right ankle over his left knee, balancing the page on his thigh for lack of a table. His handwriting was always terrible, and this makeshift desk didn't help. Perched on a rock that kept him mostly dry from the snow, he rested his right ankle over his left knee, balancing the page on his thigh for lack of a table. But that didn't matter in the slightest.

 

* * *

 

_My dear Peggy,_

_What did you do?_

_No, that's the wrong question. I know what you did. Captain Rochambeau has told me everything._

_The real question is why. Why would you risk that?_

_I'm afraid to believe I might know why._

_I've been an idiot, Peggy. I can't explain why I haven't written, although I'll try. You'll forgive me if I use French for that part. English is all right for everyday expressions, but unless you want me to sound like a five-year-old child trying to write Homer, you'll let me speak my own language to explain my foolishness. Maybe that's best saved for another letter, another time. For now, enough to know I was wrong._

_I should have written. I've been stupid. I see that now. You meant what you said. Of course you did._

_And I meant what I said._

_I've wasted so much time, Peggy. You've saved my life, and all I've done in return is waste your time and mine. I could have had so many letters from you by now. I could have had so many of your words._

_I don't know that writing you a letter explaining how much of an idiot I am will endear me to you. I can't imagine it would. I can't imagine why you care for me at all, to be frank. I'm not good for anything beyond war, tactics, and being generally hopeless in polite company. I'm reckless and I don't think ahead and everything I do is the wrong decision, as I am constantly being reminded._

_Still, I think—you've made me think—that you might be able to feel something for me._

_Although I assure you, it's nothing to how much I already feel for you._

_You've saved our army, Peggy. You've saved our hope. You've saved our country._

_And you've saved me, maybe most of all._

_I apologize for how terrible this letter is. I'm sentimental, which is one strike against me, and I'm writing in a second language, which is another. If at any point I've overstepped a boundary, said something inappropriate, or otherwise made an ass of myself, tell me. I'll be the most steadfast of friends and the chastest of companions, if that's what you want._

_But I meant what I said._

_Be safe, and be well, and forgive me for being an idiot, and write to me, if you would. I'll write back. Je vous promets._

_Yours,_

_Lafayette_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obviously Dad Washington is one of my favorite tropes. I don't know if Gossipy Great-Aunt Rochambeau is a trope yet, but I would really like it to be.
> 
> Feedback and comments give me so much joy—if you like, let me know what you think!


	6. We Move Undercover

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter six, in which we all close our eyes and pretend that Albany isn't actually like 100 miles inland. Sorry, New Yorkers, I am hilariously bad at geography, but it worked for the plot :)

_25 September 1781_

Peggy saw Eliza enter the dining room, but barely looked up from her papers. She'd been at this for the past two hours, trying and failing to focus. She'd only just hit her stride fifteen minutes ago, and damn if she'd let herself be interrupted now.

"I'm working," she said. "Can it wait?"

Eliza sighed, leaned over the desk, and picked up an envelope, which had almost been hidden underneath Peggy's ledger. Not nearly hidden enough, Peggy thought. She let out a wail of horror and lunged forward, snatching at the page. Eliza was too quick for her. She danced half a step away, turning to block Peggy's second lunge with her shoulder. With a wicked light in her eyes that she must have learned from her husband, Eliza took out the letter from the open envelope and began to read aloud.

"Yes, we've won victories, at Monmouth or at Brandywine. But there's one victory I care for more than that, the victory that lets me return and take your hand, and—"

"Eliza, I will  _murder you._ "

Peggy leaned halfway over the desk and viciously snatched the letter back.

Eliza smirked as Peggy stuffed the letter back into the envelope, then tucked the envelope into the pocket of her dress. Peggy had no idea what her own expression was, but she suspected it wasn't doing her any favors.

"I thought you said you were working," Eliza teased. "If Mr. Hale is writing you letters like this from the dockyards, I really must have a word with him."

Peggy wrinkled her nose and began to leave the room. She didn't need this. Not from Eliza, of all people. Alexander had spent the past few months at home on leave, and Eliza was newly pregnant and positively glowing. It hadn't dampened Eliza's enthusiasm at all that her husband's respite from war came because he had challenged General Washington's top general to a duel. Even annoyed as she was, Peggy didn't have the heart to remind her.

Peggy had better things to do than listen to her sister's teasing. Lafayette had been writing to her religiously for months now. His latest letter had come only that morning, and she hadn't responded to it yet.

She'd go to her bedroom, she decided. Lock the door and read it again, and again, and again—five full pages, this one, plenty to study—until she knew it by heart. The same as she'd memorized all the ones that had come before it. And then, by spitting candlelight if need be, she'd compose a reply of her own. This one in French, she'd already decided, and dusted off her old school books from the shelves for the occasion. It was only fair he got to think in his own language for once.

But she'd only made it halfway to the door before Eliza laid a gentle hand on her shoulder, calling her back.

"Peggy, wait. I…"

Peggy turned back. "Yes?"

Eliza smiled softly. "I'm sorry," she said—an angel's kindness, unselfconscious. "I don't grudge you any of it. You know I want the best for you. You and Lafayette both."

The sound of his name melted the thin layer of frost from Peggy's eyes. She wanted to remain angry, but couldn't do it. Instead, she embraced her sister, feeling the gentle curve of her pregnant belly. "I know that," she said. "I do."

Eliza's smile shone brilliant. Then, it wavered for a moment. "Oh," she said, as if remembering.

Peggy raised an eyebrow. "Mm?"

"There's someone downstairs to see you. Herodias something?"

Peggy stared. "Hercules?"

Eliza snapped her fingers. "That's the one."

Clearly this was why their father had known better than to put Eliza in charge of practical matters. "And you waited this long to tell me?" Peggy wailed. Damn it all. If Hercules Mulligan had come in person, it meant they didn't have time to waste.

She all but tore out of the room, charging down the stairs into the entrance hall. Mulligan stood near the door, watching with an expression somewhere between amusement and impatience. He was dressed warmly against the cold autumn air, and hadn't removed his coat or his boots. As Peggy descended the stairs, her skirts flying in a shameful mess, he gave her a mock-salute.

"Peg," he said wryly. "You took your time."

"Complain to Eliza," Peggy said. "She can't take a message."

She and Mulligan clasped hands, a brief businesslike shake. He was ridiculous, Hercules Mulligan, a reckless gambler and a dandy, but she liked him. He was clever. Entertaining. And best of all, he took her seriously.

"Is it tonight?" she asked.

He nodded. "Ship's in the harbor. Don't have long before they pull anchor."

She swore quietly under her breath. "All right. Let me get my coat and…"

"Really, Peg?" Mulligan said. His eyes traveled the length of Peggy's silk dress in a way that carried more brotherly exasperation than lewd intent.

Peggy tilted her head to the side. "It's cold," she said, as though he'd forgotten. "People wear coats when it's cold."

Mulligan put one hand to his head and raked it backward, as if pushing his hair out of his eyes. It would have been more effective if his hair hadn't been buzzed short. "We're going to the docks, not a cotillion," he said. "You're going to need a lot more than a coat."

Peggy paused a moment. For a moment, she wondered if Mulligan had lost his mind. A moment after that, she wondered if  _she_ had. It was a risk, a stupid one, but somehow that only made it more attractive. Say what you would about war, but sometimes it was the only way for a woman to find a little adventure.

"Eliza?" she called back up the stairs. "Is Alexander's room unlocked?"

Eliza appeared at the head of the stairs, frowning. "It is," she said dubiously. "Do I want to know why?"

"Probably not," Peggy said. "So don't ask."

 

* * *

 

Peggy stuck close to Mulligan like a second shadow. They wound their way through narrow side streets and around darkened corners, making their silent way toward the docks. The night was cold. A light mist crept from the slate-gray water across the wooden quay, swirling around the boots and breeches that fit Alexander much better than they fit Peggy. His coat was too large for her, but gave her the straight silhouette she needed to walk at night unnoticed. A brimmed hat hid her hair and shadowed her face. She kept her eyes turned low.

"Nearly there," Mulligan said under his breath. "God willing, after that I can breathe again."

"Come on, Herc," Peggy murmured. "Where's your sense of adventure?"

Mulligan's shoulders stiffened. He glared at Peggy as though she'd just slapped him across the face. "Are you actually stupid, or just pretending?" he asked. "Don't talk, unless you want to be found out. Christ, this is the stupidest thing I've ever done in my entire life."

"I don't know," Peggy said, lowering her voice to a comical near-tenor. "Alexander told me about the chickens and your grandfather's waistcoat. That's tough to top."

" _Shut up_ ," Mulligan hissed. "Evening, gentlemen," he said in his usual voice.

Peggy fell silent. Mulligan He had nodded to a pair of sailors in long black coats, who watched the pair of them from across the dock. Both strangers nodded in recognition, then returned to their prior conversation. If they noticed anything odd about Mulligan's small, silent companion, they didn't let on.

Peggy exhaled in relief. "Don't tell me to shut up," she said, once the sailors were out of earshot. "The Sons of Liberty owe me one. You're only taking soldiers to Yorktown at all tonight because you've got my father's ships."

"Are you _physically incapable_ of keeping your voice down?" Mulligan groaned.

He led her to the ship at the far end of the dock, a strong vessel with the gangplank lowered. It was tough to make out through the mist that swirled around the harbor, but Peggy knew this ship flew no colors. For a moment, she paused, looking up the gangplank in apprehension. What if he didn't want to see her? What if he'd been writing her letters for so long he didn't even remember what she was really like? What if he took one look at her and realized he was wasting his time?

She glanced over. Mulligan had nudged her shoulder. He was grinning like a nosy village matchmaker.

"Go on," he said. "They're setting sail in thirty minutes."

She nodded. Nerves or no nerves, she couldn't stay here and let Mulligan tease her for the rest of the night. She took a deep breath, then mounted the gangplank until the flat boards of the deck pressed against the soles of her boots.

The deck was a flurry of activity. Men in drab, unremarkable clothes checked ropes and crates, tied down guns, hurried from one side of the deck to the other. Yet, somehow, the ship was perfectly silent. Every breath seemed to echo.

It took Peggy less than a minute to spot Rochambeau among the chaos. A portly figure with his prodigious black mustache in full sail, he seemed to anchor the entire company. He'd always had that, that feeling of granite stability. Peggy had noticed it straightaway, in that Albany tavern where he and Peggy had worked out how to run the blockade.

And beside him, she saw now, stood Lafayette.

Even with his back to her, she'd have known his silhouette everywhere. Tall, slim, in a dark blue coat that fit him poorly, dark hair tied out of his face. All of it felt achingly familiar. The set of his shoulders, the movement of his hands as he gestured, they might have been torn from a dream.

She came closer, close enough to hear him speaking rapid-fire French to Rochambeau.

" _Si je vous l'ai dit une fois, je vous l'ai dit mille fois, si nous voulons avoir la moindre chance du tout—"_

" _Pardonne-moi_ , Major General," Rochambeau interrupted. "Unless I am much mistaken, you have a visitor."

Rochambeau nodded toward Peggy. A knowing, roguish gleam glittered in his black eyes. Mulligan must have told him their plan in advance, since he was doing everything in his power to keep from laughing.

Lafayette turned.

Peggy thanked God for the broad-brimmed hat shielding her face. She was staring, impolitely and shamelessly. She could have gone on staring forever. He was thinner now, his brown eyes set deeper in a face more angular than she remembered. A thin white scar trailed along his right cheekbone, older than the smaller one beneath his left eye. There was something fragile about him, as if his bones were now as hollow as a sparrow's, almost ready to shatter. And yet, he looked so strong. There was rapier steel in every one of his movements.

He frowned. "Who sent you, boy?" he asked. His English had gotten better over the past few months. If she blinked, she might have missed his accent.

Peggy grinned. "Me, sir? No one. I sent myself."

Lafayette froze.

He stared at her, doubting his eyes, his ears, his mind.

"Take off your hat," he said. His voice was more strained than it had been a moment ago.

Peggy swept the hat off. The strands of brown hair that had escaped the knot at the top of her head fluttered in the sea breeze.

"It's good to see you again," she said.

Lafayette's breath hissed in sharply. A hand hovered in front of his mouth. He'd lost all knowledge of words. He'd forgotten to breathe. Tentatively, he extended a hand toward hers. She took it and held it tight, to prove to him that she was real, flesh and blood that could touch, and be touched.

"Peggy," he whispered. "I…How…"

He gave up on words quickly.

Lafayette pulled her into a tight embrace. Peggy twined her arms around him and felt his warmth soak into her bones, healing her of an injury she hadn't known she'd had. She buried her head in his shoulder, filling herself with the scent of him, cedar and polished steel. His embrace was strong, but she could feel his hands trembling.

It seemed many minutes before they moved apart, enough for Lafayette to kiss her gently on the cheek. A gentleman's reserve, she thought. She both loved and hated him for it.

He looked her deeply in the eyes, as though committing her to memory.

Then Lafayette turned to Rochambeau and accosted him with an absolute tirade of relentless French.

"You knew, you _knew,_ all this time, and you never said anything to me? _Merde de chien, vous, fils de putain, je_ …"

"Come now, marquis," Rochambeau said agreeably, as Peggy dissolved into laughter. "That would have ruined the surprise."

Lafayette turned back to Peggy, all traces of anger disappearing. He took both her hands in his. They were cold, after long exposure to the autumn air, but she'd never felt warmer.

"You make a convincing boy," he said drily.

"Amazing what a coat and breeches can do," she said. "If I wanted to see you before the battle, I had to make sure no one saw me coming."

Lafayette paused. "This attack is supposed to be a _surprise,_ Peggy."

Peggy grinned. "Not to worry," she said. "I've been working with the Sons of Liberty. Your secrets are my secrets."

He smiled again and reached to brush a wayward strand of hair from her cheek. His fingers lingered a long moment. "It's a good thing I didn't know you were an undercover rebel when we first danced in Albany," he said.

"Why? Do you regret it?"

He laughed. "Hardly. If I'd known, I'd have eloped with you literally that moment. Your father would have had no choice but to shoot me."

Peggy beamed and pulled him close again, half-aware of a deckfull of sailors who had abandoned their preparations and now stood watching them. Mulligan and Rochambeau were whispering together. Peggy was in no doubt as to what they were saying. It was worse than a family reunion.

"Your letters were beautiful," Lafayette murmured. His breath was warm against her cheek. "But they weren't the same as holding you. Nothing is. Nothing could be."

Over Lafayette's shoulder, a young sailor inched closer and cleared his throat. Neither Peggy nor Lafayette looked at him. He waited another moment, awkward, then tapped Lafayette sheepishly on the shoulder.

"Major General," the boy said. "We lift anchor in fifteen minutes."

"I know," Lafayette said. He did not look away from Peggy. "That means I have fifteen minutes."

The boy ducked away again, leaving them alone.

"Yorktown," Peggy said. Her hand trailed absently over Lafayette's shoulder, down his arm, interlacing her fingers with his. "You feel ready?"

"Ready as Achilles," Lafayette said.

His eyes danced with a soldier's anticipation, a beam of light reflected off a bayonet. A ravenous energy possessing him like lightning trapped in a glass bottle. The soldier half of his brain. She had never seen him look so fierce. She loved him just as much like this, if differently.

"Have you ever _read_ the Iliad, _mon cher_?" Peggy asked.

Lafayette blinked, then blushed slightly. "No."

"I thought as much. Achilles _died_ , remember."

"Not this time," Lafayette said, undeterred. "We have every advantage. Numbers, ships, location, timing. All of it. I can feel this victory, Peggy."

"You'll be safe?" she asked.

He grinned, a young man's bravado, the shining white flash of immortality. "Of course. I have to be. I'm fighting for you."

Peggy raised her eyebrows. "At this point," she said, "I think I'm fighting for myself."

Lafayette laughed. "True. Good thing I've never counted meekness as one of your faults."

She could almost hear her father's voice drifting through the autumn wind. How many times had he said it to her before the war? At least a hundred times, each one with that same look of faint disdain.  _Peggy,_ _why do you never listen? Do what I tell you. The road to a husband is not paved with willful disobedience._

"I'm glad you think meekness is a fault."

"Oh, of course," he said—the space between them, previously three inches, shrank to one. "Why would I want you to be predictable when you have such an incredible ability to surprise me?"

"Please be careful," she said. Almost immediately, she cringed at the pointlessness of the sentence. She wasn't a sentimental person, wasn't frightened of every bump in the night. And he'd already said he'd be careful. She laughed, trying her best to play it off as a joke. "I need you to bring yourself back alive, so you can meet my father. After all," she said wryly, "if he doesn't approve of you, this has all been a terrible waste of time."

Lafayette stared for a moment, startled. Peggy might have laughed, that the prospect of meeting Philip Schuyler seemed more terrifying to him than taking the entire British army by surprise. He started to respond, but was interrupted by yet another gentle tap on his shoulder. This time, it wasn't a sheepish boy, but Captain Rochambeau himself. He regarded the pair with an indulgent smile, inclining his head at Peggy.

" _Je m'excuse_ , Mademoiselle Schuyler," he said, and looked as though he meant it. "But I fear I need my major general back. After all, there's a war going on."

Her heart sank—so soon? But of course, the ship was only pausing here to resupply. A ship's worth of soldiers couldn't be delayed so that Peggy and Lafayette could speak in private. She was lucky to have had as much time as she'd stolen. Hiding her feelings with a smile, the way she and her sisters had done for years at balls with dull dancing partners, she nodded at the captain.

"Of course," she said. "One minute, and he's yours, Captain."

"Hardly," Lafayette replied. "Yours first, always."

"I should hope so," she said drily. "If you prefer Rochambeau to me, I'm afraid our love is doomed."

Lafayette laughed, then looked over his shoulder, a little nervously. What exactly he expected to see, Peggy wasn't sure. It was the same scene as ever. Sailors hastily going about their business, preparing to haul anchor. When he turned back to her, there was something else in his expression. Something that threw caution to the winds. The same look that had possessed him the first time they'd danced in Albany, that reckless look that boded many things, and few of them polite.

"Peggy?"

Was he going to make her drag it out of him? "Yes?"

He looked down at his feet, abashed as a schoolboy. "Before you go…may I say goodbye?"

She knew what he meant, of course, he wasn't exactly being subtle, but she wouldn't let him get off that easily. "Didn't you just?"

He blushed. "I meant, Properly."

She grinned. In full view of at least seventy sailors, she slipped one arm around his waist. She heard his breath catch with something that was not surprise. He pressed close against her, the lean whipcord of his body flush against hers. Still, they both knew who was leading this dance. Master of military strategy, perhaps, but there were still several things she could teach him.

"Lafayette, you idiot," she said, trailing the pad of her thumb across his cheek. "Did you think I'd say no?"

She let her smile quirk off to one side, and she took his face in both hands, and she kissed him.

At first, he seemed surprised, almost frozen. Only a quarter of a second, before he came back to himself. He pulled her to him, so close it almost hurt, but the gasp she breathed against his lips wasn't from pain. They were shameless, careless, thoughtless. She kissed him with a back-alley passion that would have scandalized every respectable person within fifty miles. His kiss filled her lungs with his breath, her mind with his complete, unveiled self. His kiss tasted as he smelled, warm, solid, real.

This, Peggy thought, was what heaven felt like.

Somewhere behind Lafayette, Rochambeau made a carrying remark in French to one of the sailors. Peggy didn't understand it, but Lafayette plainly did, judging by the vulgar one-handed gesture he flashed the captain behind his back.

And then, because nothing perfect could last, because time would have its way with everything, they broke apart, to the lewd winks and whispers of the ship's crew. Lafayette was beaming, shamelessly pleased, blushing to the very roots of his hair.

Mulligan appeared at Peggy's elbow, tugging her in the direction of the gangplank. "Sorry, Juliet," he said. "That was the lark, not the nightingale. Time to go."

"Go to hell, Herc," Peggy said. She threw her arms around Lafayette's neck and kissed him once more. "I'll see you on the other side of the war," she whispered to Lafayette.

Then Mulligan led her away, down the gangplank, back into the mist of the docks. Thank God for the hat, she thought. Without it, she'd have no way of hiding the smile splitting her face, bright enough to blind.

 

* * *

 

Lafayette leaned over the ship's rail, letting the ocean breeze toy with his hair. The waves lapped softly against the hull of the ship, murmuring a wordless lullaby. He would have time to grow accustomed to the sound: Virginia was two days' sail away. He watched as the ship left the harbor farther and farther behind, until the lights of the city's taverns and houses and glittering lanterns were lost beneath the faint pinpricks of the stars.

"Mademoiselle Schuyler is a special woman," Rochambeau said from beside him.

Lafayette flinched. For a man of his size, Rochambeau was unnervingly good at moving without making a sound. Rochambeau leaned his forearms on the rail, hands clasped loosely in front of him. He watched Lafayette with a parental sort of amusement.

"You're very lucky, Monsieur Lafayette," he said. "I hope you realize."

Lafayette looked back at the smudge of land against the horizon. "I do," he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Raise a glass for Hercules Mulligan, revolutionary spy and Mom Friend Extraordinaire.
> 
> Drop a kudo if you liked, a comment if you wanna make my whole day!


	7. Armistice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry we're covering so much time so fast! It's my fault. My attention span is very short. Also, if I wrote this without time jumps, it would be like 300K words long. Which is...a lot.
> 
> Anyway, thanks for putting up with me, and let's carry on.

_7 October 1781_

Peggy had never complained about her height before. At five feet four inches, her figure had never commanded a ballroom the moment she entered it. She'd left that skill to Angelica, whose statuesque form and extra six inches had always turned heads. It had hardly mattered before. But now, standing here in the middle of the crowd thronging Hanover Street, she'd have given anything to be seven feet tall. She couldn't see a damn thing.

Over the heads of the crowd, she could make out a brief flash of silver, a sparkle that set her heart dancing. Bayonets, she thought. The bayonets of returning soldiers. It had to be, if the cheering, laughing crowd was anything to go by. Their elation whirled round her head in a cloud of sugar-spun celebration. It felt strangely distant. They could celebrate these nameless soldiers all they liked. There was only one person Peggy cared to see.

From beside her, Eliza laid her hand gently on Peggy's shoulder and smiled. "Don't worry," she said. "He's coming."

"You can't know that," Peggy said. "The list of casualties from Yorktown was never published," she continued, though there was no reason to continue. She was rambling. She knew she was rambling. That didn't mean she could stop. "And they'd tell you if Alexander was wounded, but who would tell me if—"

"Alex!"

And Eliza was literally swept off her feet by a blur in a blue coat. Alexander had shoved his way through the crowd to reach his wife, knocking aside no fewer than thirty disgruntled New Yorkers. Peggy stepped aside, narrowly avoiding being kicked in the head as Alexander whirled Eliza in a merry, wild circle. Her sister's laughter rang as high and clear as the bells in the church nearby.

"Alex, please, the baby!" Eliza managed.

"My God, the _baby_ ," Alexander said, wide-eyed, and set Eliza down as though she were made of glass. He bent down to one knee and, with an air of reverence, kissed Eliza's eight-months-pregnant belly. "Hello, little one," he said, grinning ear to ear. "Just so you know, I'm ready to meet my son any day now."

"And if it's a girl?" Peggy asked.

Alexander flinched. Clearly he hadn't noticed his sister-in-law. He'd thought he and his wife were in their own private universe, where nothing mattered save this one perfect moment, his family back within his grasp. Peggy tried not to envy him that.

"Then I'll be the proud father of the most brilliant daughter in America," Alexander said.

Eliza beamed. But then, Peggy thought, Alexander knew what she wanted to hear. He wanted a son, much as he might pretend otherwise.

He straightened up, twining one arm around Eliza's shoulders. "Well, Schuyler sisters?" he said. "Let the rest of the battalion file into town on their own time. I've found all I need. Let's go."

"Not yet," Peggy said tersely. Again, she cursed her height with every oath in her arsenal. For God's sake, all she wanted was to  _see._

Alexander looked at her sideways a moment. Then, understanding flashed in his eyes. "Ah," he said. "Of course. I forgot. I'm an idiot."

"If you wanted an argument, love," Eliza said, "it won't come from me."

But Alexander was in too good a mood to let his wife's teasing dissuade him. He drew himself up to his full height, panning the whole of the crowd, before he spotted what he was looking for. He pointed, somewhat ostentatiously, like a captain spotting land.

"Lancelot is next to the general, little sister," Alexander said, grinning. "Head for the white horse. My wife and I have some catching up to do."

They did, apparently—and were in no mood to wait for a private room to get started.

More happiness to them, Peggy thought, rolling her eyes, and left them as soon as she could. She shoved her way shamelessly through the crowd toward the center of the street, where the triumphant soldiers of the Continental Army returned from Yorktown to the capital of their new nation.

Peggy hadn't given a damn about patriotism at the beginning of the war. She'd learned, running with the Sons of Liberty. She was as happy to see victory as the next person. But now wasn't the time for flag-waving.

Alexander saw him, she reminded herself. If he was wounded, if something terrible had happened, Alexander would have mentioned. Alexander would have said.

Wouldn't he?

The crowd broke in front of her, parting to reveal the tall, powerful figure of a strong-featured man on a white horse, with the golden stars of a general across his shoulders. And beside him, on foot, a young man of twenty-three, handsome face nicked by two thin white scars, turned away from her, speaking quickly to the general.

Alive. Alive and unhurt.

It made Peggy want to weep.

But weeping would have been ridiculous, when she could do something so much better. 

She darted forward, toward the general's horse, and laid one hand on the animal's withers. It halted almost at once, startled by the imposition. The general looked down too, likewise startled.

"Excuse me, General," she said to Washington.

"Miss?" he asked.

But if Washington had taken the time to look at Lafayette, who'd just tripped over absolutely nothing, he'd have understood.

"I need to borrow your major general," she said.

She didn't get the chance to say more.

Lafayette had clung to the rituals of polite courtship throughout their acquaintance. His letters had been effusive, but restrained. The one kiss they'd shared had been hesitant, until she'd given him the confidence to make it otherwise.

But now, Lafayette was through being careful.

It didn't matter that they were in the middle of the street. That he hadn't even said hello. That General George Washington himself was half a foot away observing the whole affair.

Lafayette grinned like an unruly teenager. He nested one hand in her hair, twined the other arm around her waist, and pulled Peggy so close she felt his heart against her chest. How well their bodies fit together, she thought. As if one had been made for the other. As if—

Then Lafayette's lips met hers, and she forgot how to think entirely.

She didn't even need to breathe. His breath in her lungs was enough for her. She'd feel the world through his hands. His lips parted, deepening the kiss, and she felt a small breath—not a moan, but not quite not that either—pass from her mouth to his. The shape of the kiss seemed to shift as his smile broadened.

She'd never kissed a man who was laughing.

If there was a God, it lived in kisses spiked with laughter.

When he pulled away at last, his dark eyes sparkled, and his smile didn't fade an inch. She reached up to brush a wayward strand of hair from his forehead—a thin excuse to touch him.

"Hello to you too," she said quietly.

A soft, small laugh made them both turn. Washington was watching them from the other side of the street with an indulgent smile, the look of a godfather casually assessing his godson's life choices. Lafayette flushed slightly. But even his embarrassment couldn't make him let Peggy go.

"I assume," Washington said airily, "you're the Miss Schuyler to whom we're so indebted?"

Surprised, Peggy could do nothing but curtsey. "You owe me nothing, sir," she said. Her voice maintained a level of calm that surprised even herself. "You gave me a country."

"And a dashing young officer in the bargain." Washington winked. If he'd been standing on the ground instead of perched on horseback, he'd have slapped Lafayette on the back. Lafayette's blush deepened. "You're right, Miss Schuyler. Our accounts do seem to be settled."

"General," Lafayette began, "can I…"

"The war's over," Washington said. "Go and profit from civilian life. Meet me on Wednesday morning at my lodgings," he added, before kicking his horse back into motion. "My long-suffering wife awaits me."

He was gone in a moment, a glorious figure even in departure, resplendent on his white horse.

Peggy grinned and pulled Lafayette out of the street, toward where Eliza and Alexander stood several yards away.

"Is the general's favorite pastime tormenting you?" she asked casually.

Lafayette winced. "God knows what he'll do for entertainment without me."

Peggy stopped walking and turned back to look at him. Just to look. She'd barely stopped thinking about him, though the time they'd been apart far exceeded any time they'd spent together. And here he was, now, standing next to her. His hand on her hand. His eyes looking at her eyes. As bewildered and elated as her own.

"What?" he asked, when a long moment had passed.

"I just want to look at you," she admitted. "I…My God, do you know how I've missed you?"

"Yes." His hand had curled around her waist again; she leaned her head against his shoulder. "Every day. Every moment. I missed you as a drowning man misses breathing."

"As an eagle misses the wind," drawled Alexander. "As a river misses the ocean. As a flea misses a rat."

Alexander had put himself back into the conversation with the delicacy of a battering ram. He slung one lanky arm around Lafayette's shoulder, the broad gestures of a drunk though he was sober as a Sunday. Peggy edged out of the way, narrowly avoiding the urge to give her brother-in-law a good kick.

"I know, _mon ami,_ I know it all. I've heard it all before," Alexander teased. "Every damn day since I came back to war, there you were, sighing after my little sister like the Christ-cursed Lady of Shalott."

Eliza cocked an eyebrow. "Monsieur Lafayette is hardly a lady."

Alexander shrugged. "Major General of Shalott, then. Anyway, the sighing's the thing."

Peggy's annoyance melted in a heartbeat. Suddenly Alexander's presence wasn't so annoying after all. "Oh?" she asked. "And what else has he said about me?"

"I'll tell you myself," Lafayette said, disentangling himself from Alexander's one-armed embrace. "In _private._ "

Private. Time in private, with Lafayette. Had there ever been a more beautiful set of sounds than the two syllables of "private"?

Eliza diplomatically guided Alexander away from Lafayette, keeping him at her side. It was a completely transparent effort to make sure Alexander didn't make a shameful nuisance of himself. Again. "We'll make sure to seat the two of you together at dinner tonight," Eliza said, smiling at Peggy.

Lafayette frowned. "Dinner?" he repeated.

"Peggy, didn't you tell him?" Eliza asked.

"He's been back four minutes," Peggy snapped.

Alexander's grin boded only wickedness. "Dinner tonight, at Philip Schuyler's table. Angelica and her fiancé John Church, Eliza and me, Peggy and you."

Peggy glanced at Lafayette, who had suddenly gripped her hand as though she was the only solid thing anchoring him to the earth. She narrowly managed to keep from laughing at the look of abject terror on his face. This man who had faced down cannons, charged the British army from a fleet of stolen warships, absconded from France under cover of darkness to fight a revolution alongside strangers. This man, terrified of dinner.

"No," he said, his accent strengthening as it always did when he grew nervous. "She failed to mention that."

The cause of his fear wasn't hard to guess. Peggy remembered it, as she was sure Lafayette remembered it right now too. Philip Schuyler, watching from across the ballroom at Eliza's wedding, glaring daggers at Lafayette and seemingly plotting murder on the spot. Peggy would admit, she wasn't exactly optimistic about how introducing Lafayette to her father would turn out. But she could fake confidence as well as anyone. It was part of the job of being a woman in society. You learned to smile, and lie, and pretend nothing frightened you.

"You're afraid of my father, Major General?" Peggy teased. "No one's going to aim a bayonet at you from across the table. Promise."

"Honestly?" Lafayette said grimly. "I might prefer that."

"Come on, then," Alexander said, demonstrating again the extent to which patience was not his stronge suit. "Get changed, and get ready. Look the enemy in the face. As it were."

"I don't have any other clothes," Lafayette said. Peggy heard a faint trace of hope in the words, as if the fact he currently owned one clean waistcoat would be enough to save him.

"John Church is the best-dressed man this side of the Atlantic," Eliza remarked, grinning. "Come home with Peggy and me. I daresay we can find you something."

 

* * *

 

Lafayette stood in front of the mirror in the Schuyler family's spare bedroom. He regarded his reflection critically and scowled. His reflection scowled back, evidently as disappointed in the original as he was in the image. If only he could make his hair behave. Then he'd look respectable, and Philip Schuyler would approve of him, and he could survive the evening without being shouted at for an hour about the audacity of immigrants and the decadence of the aristocracy. He smoothed a few strands of dark hair into place. They sprung back into their original position with almost sarcastic alacrity.

"You look fine. Don't worry."

Lafayette flinched. He hadn't heard Peggy enter, but there she was, dressed for dinner in a stunning pale purple silk, watching him with an easy smile. Her hair was, of course, impeccable.

"I worry like I breathe, Peggy."

Peggy shook her head. "He's going to like you," she said. "You're impossible not to like. Everyone always likes you."

"But what if he doesn't like me?"

She sighed. "You'll have to knock a child into a well on your way to dinner to make him hate you."

Lafayette turned away from the mirror in irritation. It was simply not going to get better than this. "The night is young," he said, "and New York has plenty of wells. Now. The black, or the green?"

He held up two waistcoats, one in either hand, both borrowed from the wardrobe of John Church. Eliza was right—the sheer amount of clothes Angelica's fiancé had brought with him from London was frankly astounding. Lafayette was slimmer than Church, but not by much, and they were nearly the same height. It would do in a pinch.

"The black," she said, pointing. "Definitely the black. You look more yourself when you're not wearing bright colors. Anything more exciting and you'll start to look like Hercules Mulligan."

Lafayette laughed despite himself and slipped the black waistcoat over his shoulders. "God spare me that fate." Fully dressed, he spread his arms wide, indicating the whole of his person to Peggy and presenting it for judgment. "Well?"

He felt Peggy's eyes linger a moment more, along with that familiar yet incredulous joy that someone as perfect as Peggy Schuyler would ever look at him that way.

"Astonishing," she said, stepping fully into the room now. "Let's not go down to dinner after all. I'd much rather stay here and appreciate how good you look in that waistcoat." Her fingers trailed down the length of his arm, gently teasing. "And perhaps find out how good you look out of it."

Lafayette grinned and kissed her. A gentle, warm kiss, no time for more, not with the rest of the family waiting still for the downstairs. "Don't tempt me," he murmured, "or I'll hold you to that."

Peggy laughed and kissed him again. "Shall we?" she asked, lacing her fingers between his.

"Lead on, mademoiselle," Lafayette said somewhat grimly, and closed the bedroom door behind them as they left.


	8. Menu, Venue, and Seating

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been eight hundred years since I last added a chapter! Thanks for bearing with my love for this rare pair and my inability to update on a schedule.
> 
> I hope you enjoy chapter eight, in which I argue my headcanon that Philip Schuyler Sr. is everyone's racist uncle at Thanksgiving dinner.

Lafayette hesitated a long moment in the hall. A pair of servants, both late for one thing or another, spared him a sympathetic sideways glance as they hurried by. He pretended not to have seen them. Closing his eyes, he let himself remember the crystal-dripping, golden-edged halls of Versailles, where the King of France had received him at fourteen, and where he'd made an absolute ass of himself in front of Marie Antoinette. If he could survive that audience, when he'd been nothing more than a boy with a too-large title and an off-center bow, then by God he could walk into that room with his head held high.

He had, after all, just overthrown the British Empire. That had to count for something.

The faint pressure of someone's hand on his shoulder brought Lafayette back to himself. He glanced over to see that Peggy had appeared behind him, smiling that gently teasing smile.

"Ready?" she asked.

He nodded.

He was lying.

Stepping around him, Peggy opened the twin doors, took Lafayette's hand, and led him into the room. He followed and took a seat beside her at the walnut table, set for seven. The table took up more than half the room, with space around the perimeter for servants to pass bearing various courses. High, narrow windows were set into the dark-paneled walls, but thick curtains had already been pulled to shut out the street.

He and Peggy were not alone—Angelica and her fiancé John Church had already arrived. Lafayette inclined his head to each of them in turn, Angelica with her lively black eyes and Church with his fastidiously trimmed beard the color of new-mown hay.

"Major General," Church said, and extended a large hand for Lafayette to shake. "Pleasure to have a face along with the name. Your daring exploits are legend by now."

There was something in Church's London accent that made it hard to tell whether he was being sarcastic. At least Church hadn't remarked on the origin of Lafayette's jacket, for which he was enormously grateful.

Angelica had just begun to speak when the door to the dining-room opened again, admitting Eliza and a surprisingly subdued Alexander. Although it didn't take long to see why he'd suddenly learned to behave himself. Philip Schuyler followed, not far behind.

The man of the hour—in Schuyler's own opinion, the man of all hours. A handsome man of forty-five, and a war hero of the highest caliber. He wore the blue officer's coat he must have worn home that morning, and leaned on an iron-tipped cane that thumped like a heartbeat against the floor with each step. A sharp look in his eye as he limped to the head of the table, scanning each of the men, who were all sufficiently intimidated to stand at near-attention. He frowned down the table at Lafayette, who mercifully had placed Peggy between them as a sort of neutral zone.

"So that's the frog who's got it into his head to seduce my daughter?" he asked, the question seemingly to anyone listening. "No one told me he was a child. Has his voice even broken yet, I wonder?"

Lafayette stared, feeling all the blood rush to his face. It was a lucky thing Schuyler had already sat, as Lafayette felt a sudden need to sink down into his own chair. 

Peggy glared at her father in irritation—though not, Lafayette noticed, with surprise. "Father, please—"

"Don't be ridiculous, Peggy," Schuyler scoffed. "You know he doesn't speak English. He doesn't understand a blessed word I'm saying."

Alexander glanced at Lafayette, half a laugh in his eyes. Very well for him, Lafayette thought. Alexander had already charmed the cruelty out of Philip Schuyler. Hindsight could make anything funny.

"Forgive me, sir," he said in English, in a voice as polite and unaccented as he could manage, "but I'm not entirely sure she _does_ know that."

Peggy and Alexander both tried to mask their laughter. Neither achieved any great success.

Schuyler, for his part, stared at Lafayette in disbelief. "They said you didn't speak a word—"

"Did they also mention my mustache and my fleet of ships?" Lafayette's nerves were fraying at the ends, but he kept his voice level and his hand on Peggy's knee. "They may have confused me with Captain Rochambeau. It happens."

The silence following this was agonizing. For a few long moments, Lafayette seriously considered making a run for it, propriety be damned. But then Schuyler laughed, the too-loud laugh of a man in his own house.

"Well, I'll be damned. But it's not the worst first impression I've made, is it? What was it I called your husband, Eliza, when I met him?"

Eliza blushed, plainly reluctant to reply.

"A tar-brushed creole bastard, wasn't it, sir?" Alexander volunteered brightly. His tone was light, but Lafayette could see from the way Eliza leaned her shoulder against him that he had not forgiven, and likely would never forgive.

"That's it, exactly. Well, it's as I say," Schuyler went on, leaning back in his chair—Lafayette heard his back crack with the movement. "There's no one good enough for my girls, no matter how well they speak the language, that's clear enough."

Between Lafayette's Parisian-slanted English, Church's London accent, and the faint undertones of Alexander's Caribbean lilt, none of the three men were wholly clear who among them had just been insulted.

"I quite agree, sir," Lafayette said, to be safe.

Peggy gripped Lafayette's hand tightly under the table. _You've fought wars and led armies,_ that hand seemed to say. _You've handled worse. J_ _ust don't bayonet my father, and it'll be all right._

Lafayette nudged her foot under the table. _I know,_ said the nudge. _Don't worry. I'll behave._

Fortunately, he was spared having to make conversation by the entrance of a small fleet of servants bearing the first course. Seizing the opportunity to have something to do with their hands, both Lafayette and Alexander made themselves unreasonably busy with their soup spoons.

"So, boy," Schuyler said to Lafayette. "If you weren't a naval captain in the Army, what were you? Peggy tells me you had a relatively distinguished career."

At the far end of the table, Alexander choked on a mouthful of soup. Eliza glared daggers at him. She was obviously realizing how much she had overestimated her husband's ability to behave.

"Father," Angelica said, enunciating carefully as though Schuyler were not confused, but merely hard of hearing, "this is Major General Lafayette."

The explanation did not seem to help Schuyler orient himself in the slightest.

"America's favorite fighting Frenchman," Alexander supplied, would-be helpfully. Eliza silenced him again with a glare.

Still nothing.

But then, Lafayette was less than surprised. Schuyler had been an effective officer in his own right, but he'd never come off as the type to care about anything not of immediate concern to his own person.

"I served under General Washington," Lafayette explained, with what he hoped was a winning smile and not a grimace. "At Brandywine, at Monmouth, at Yorktown."

"A boy like you?" Schuyler demanded. "How old are you, at that?"

"Old enough to win a war, sir," he replied without missing a beat.

Peggy grinned. Check one.

"Well," Schuyler began, then cleared his throat. "I suppose. When I was your age, boy, there was none of the glory of the Continental Army. None of this business of fancy uniforms and foreign drill sergeants. No, when I led a scouting party up into Quebec…"

Peggy tugged on the sleeve of Lafayette's jacket, pulling close enough that she could whisper in his ear. "Well done," she said. "He loves talking about Quebec. He'll go on for an hour now."

"What was that?" Schuyler asked sharply.

"Nothing, Father," Peggy said. "I was only telling Monsieur Lafayette that your stories about Quebec are my favorite. I've tried telling them a dozen times, but you tell it so much better."

Schuyler gave a small hum of approval and lapsed back into the narrative. Lafayette, for his part, began to relax. Now that he knew what kind of man Philip Schuyler was, it would be easy. A braggart, a lover of rules and order and tradition, another Horatio Gates, a Charles Lee. All it took was a listening ear and some well-timed flattery to get men like that exactly where you wanted them. And while Lafayette was not exactly known for his social graces, that much at least he could handle.

Philip Schuyler's story of Quebec, for what it was worth, consisted of one part colorful exaggeration to three parts bald-faced lies. But Lafayette hadn't been raised a member of the French aristocracy for nothing. He nodded at the right moments, made interjections of surprise or awe as needed. The older officer, clearly delighted at having an audience who appreciated him appropriately, embellished the story to the breaking point. Lafayette graciously allowed it.

It was easier this way, not to be speaking about himself. To operate on the margins of the conversation, a part of it, but not at its center. He held Peggy's hand through the entirety of dinner, regardless of how difficult that made eating. The evening was going well, as well as he could have hoped, but that hardly helped keep him calm. Any situation that involved speaking to strangers for longer than twenty minutes sent Lafayette's heart beating at twice its normal speed. War, tactics, revolution, there he thrived. But put him in the drawing room, and suddenly a swift death seemed preferable.

"And that," Schuyler was concluding at long last—Lafayette forced himself to pay attention—"was how I single-handedly took Fort Saint-Jean, with nothing but a hatchet and a sawed-off musket. I'll bet your fellow French soldiers have never seen the like."

"No, sir," Lafayette agreed, "I can't say they have."

Alexander winked at Lafayette, then leaned in to catch something Angelica was saying. Since Lafayette had diverted Schuyler's attention, the Hamiltons and the Churches had been able to section off their end of the table into a private conversation. Lafayette couldn't blame them. He would have done the same, if he could.

Schuyler leaned back in his chair again, heaving a deeply contented sigh. The new posture put the grandfather clock in the corner directly in his line of sight. He did the smallest of double-takes, as if the passage of time were an entirely new concept.

"Dear God, it can't be nine o'clock, can it?"

Oh, believe you me, sir, Lafayette thought, it most assuredly can.

Some men were such natural-born storytellers that they could make two hours feel like the blink of an eye. Philip Schuyler was not one of these men.

With a small grunt of effort, Schuyler rose from his chair. The rest of the table rose as one, on cue.

"Margaret, would you help me to the drawing-room?" Schuyler asked. "I'd like to take care of some business tonight before I retire."

Peggy looked at her father skeptically. "Of course, Father."

"It was an honor to make your acquaintance, General Schuyler," Lafayette said, with the deepest bow he'd used since Versailles.

"Not so fast, boy," Schuyler said sharply. "You'll come too, if you'd be so kind. My business is with you."

Lafayette cringed. Of course. That would have been too easy.

"Yes, sir," he said. "Absolutely."

Feeling his heart sink with every step, he joined Peggy and Schuyler as they left the room and made the short journey to the drawing-room. As he passed, Alexander nudged him in the shoulder and flashed him a quick double-thumbs-up. Fortunately, Schuyler failed to notice it.

When they entered the small drawing-room, Schuyler sat heavily in the armchair closest to the fire. It was only October, with the full chill of winter still several weeks away, but he leaned toward the flames as though the cold of January had taken up residence in his bones. Peggy sat near him on the sofa, anxiously waiting for him to speak. Lafayette stood beside the hearth with his hands folded behind his back, waiting. It felt like standing in front of a firing squad, not knowing whether any of the guns aimed at his chest actually contained bullets.

"So. Lafayette."

He waited for Schuyler to finish the thought.

He waited for some time.

"Yes, sir?" he prompted, finally.

"I think I like you," Schuyler said simply.

Somehow, the way Schuyler said it, it didn't sound like a ringing endorsement.

"I'm glad to hear that, sir."

"And you seem to make my daughter happy, though God knows what she sees in you."

"Father," Peggy groaned. "Could you try to be polite for ten minutes?"

"Polite?" Schuyler scoffed. "It's not as if I've insulted him. Not yet," he added, a spark of mischief in his eyes.

"If you want to insult me, sir, that is certainly your right," Lafayette said. "Where can you insult a man, if not your own house?"

Schuyler laughed. "You're clever. I like that. And a good listener. I like that too. But let me tell you one thing. And I want you to listen carefully."

"Of course, sir."

"I don't know how you handle courtship on the Continent, but here in America, we have rules, you understand? There is a way that things are _done._ And you will keep yourself restrained within those limits, because whatever your lecherous French upbringing makes you think is acceptable, I promise you—"

Peggy let out a small wail of embarrassment and buried her face in her hands. If Lafayette could have melted into a puddle and been evaporated by the roaring fire, that would have been preferable.

"I promise you, sir," he stammered, hating his own awkwardness with every syllable, "you have nothing, nothing at all, to worry about. I…"

"See that I don't," Schuyler agreed. "Treat my daughter well, boy. And know that if you don't, well, I still have the hatchet I used to take Fort Saint-Jean."

As a boy growing up in Paris, Lafayette had received his fair share of reprimands. He'd been shouted at by superior officers, chastised by the fathers of his adolescent paramours, once publicly shamed by the Duc d'Orleans for having appeared seven minutes late to dinner. This was, however, the very first time he'd been threatened with a hatchet.

"Yes, sir," he said, and bowed hastily. "I will keep that at the front of my thoughts."

Schuyler nodded. "Go, then. Both of you. There are some papers I would read through tonight. I'll ring for the servants to help me to bed."

He didn't need to tell them twice. Peggy and Lafayette were through the door almost before he'd finished the sentence.

In the hall, Lafayette leaned his back against the closed door to the drawing-room and shut his eyes. He felt suddenly light-headed, as though he'd just run fifteen miles instead of sitting through a dinner. Peggy, a few steps away, folded her arms and shifted her weight onto one leg.

"That went well," she said. "He's enamored with you."

Lafayette's eyes snapped open. "I beg your pardon?"

"Trust me," Peggy said, grinning. "He adores you. You should see how he treats people he _doesn't_ like."

She slipped one arm around his waist, leading him away from the door, and Lafayette abruptly forgot he had spent the entire evening on the brink of a panic attack.

"You were perfect," she said, her breath close against his cheek. "Absolutely perfect. A stunning tactical triumph. Why don't we"—her hand around his waist slipped lower, and he swallowed a gasp—"retire upstairs, to enjoy the victory?"

He couldn't remember ever having heard a better suggestion.

"Aren't you worried about my lecherous French upbringing?" he murmured in her ear.

"Do you know, that's actually one of the things I like best about you."


	9. Fleur-de-Lis

_8 January 1785_

Peggy almost didn't recognize Aaron Burr when he was in a good mood. She'd met him once or twice since the war, if only because he and Eliza's husband seemed to run into each other every time they left the house. Much as she rolled her eyes at Alexander, Peggy found Burr even more unbearable, in many ways. He was always forward, cuttingly sarcastic, inscrutable, distant, far too confident in his own charms. When Burr invited Peggy and Lafayette to his home that January, she'd have done almost anything to turn down the invitation.

Now, she was glad she'd come. If only to see the strangest sight she'd ever experienced on this earth: Aaron Burr flinging open the door to his stately townhome, positively beaming.

"Major General!" he exclaimed. "Excellent to see you again." And he embraced Lafayette, there in plain sight on the veranda.

Lafayette let out a small squeak of surprise. Peggy stifled her laughter in her handkerchief, feigning a cough.

"And Miss Schuyler too, of course," Burr added, still smiling.

Peggy gave a small curtsey. Mercifully, Burr stopped short of extending the hug to both parties.

"Come in, please, come in."

Burr led them into the front parlor, where a warm fire blazed in the hearth, not far from a stunning grand piano. Peggy made a mental note to mention it to Eliza. It was gorgeous, so much better than the rickety upright Alexander had brought home from some disreputable second-hand shop uptown. Peggy rather suspected it had been stolen at some point, smuggled across state lines or used as a hiding-place for black-market weapons. In any case, it would never keep in tune, and the whole thing still smelled faintly of gunpowder. Maybe Mrs. Burr would let Eliza practice on this one from time to time, or at least know where to find another like it.

Peggy and Lafayette sat side by side on the sofa. His knee nudged hers, their shoulders touching, and she grinned. After the war, he'd seen no reason to keep his hands off her, and so by and large had not. Not, of course, that she minded. Propriety was an annoying thing, made to break.

"How is she, Burr?" Lafayette asked. "Well?"

Burr's whole face lit up. He was almost handsome when he was happy, Peggy thought. Or perhaps it was only his uncharacteristic joy that was attractive. Either way, it was good to see Burr smile and mean it.

"Well? Better than well. The best. She's perfect. Would you like to meet her?"

Lafayette inclined his head. "It would be an honor," he said gravely—until the façade broke with a smile.

Burr laughed. Actually laughed. Clearly the world was about to end.

"She's with my wife upstairs. I'll be right back."

He bounded from the room, leaving Peggy and Lafayette alone. Enjoying the privacy, she stole a brief kiss, then laid her head on his shoulder.

"I'll admit," she said, "I thought you were mad, agreeing to come. But he's being downright pleasant."

"It's unnerving." The vibration of Lafayette's voice resonated against her ear. "Pleasantness and Burr go together like Alexander and common sense."

Peggy lifted her head to look at him. "Are you suggesting Alexander is capable of common sense?"

"Aaron Burr hugged me on the veranda," Lafayette reminded her. "At this moment, I'm inclined to believe anything is possible."

She shook her head. "Has anyone ever told you you're ridiculous?"

He grinned. "Not once. That's why I keep you close. To remind me."

She sidled slightly closer—not that there was much room to grow closer with their shoulders already touching, but what little space there was, she availed herself of.

"Are you sure that's the only reason?"

Before he could reply, and no doubt escalate the situation to one highly inappropriate for someone else's parlor, Burr appeared again in the doorway. The same irrepressible smile lit up his face. In his arms, held as delicately as the world's most precious treasure, was a baby girl.

A tiny girl, no more than six weeks old. A small fuzz of dark hair, a strong nose, the largest black eyes Peggy had ever seen in a child's face. Peggy didn't usually compliment other people's children. It always felt like lying, pretending to see resemblances where in fact there were none. One baby was more or less like another. But there was no two ways about it: little Theodosia Burr would grow up to be the most beautiful woman in New York.

"She's perfect," Peggy said, as Burr sat in a chair at her side, still cradling Theodosia. "Absolutely perfect."

"May I hold her?"

Peggy looked at Lafayette in surprise. They'd never talked about children. It wasn't the kind of thing that came up by accident, and Peggy had always been studious about making sure it never came up on purpose. But somehow she'd always imagined that Lafayette would be one of those men who was starkly terrified of babies, who feared he'd break them if he touched them. Maybe because of his tendency to break at least one household object every time he visited the Schuyler manor, from a wineglass to the little porcelain shepherds Eliza had taken to collecting when she was young. How could a man who couldn't handle dinnerware be expected to hold a child?

Burr nodded, and in a moment Theodosia was comfortable in Lafayette's arms. He was a natural, supporting the child's head without being told. He rocked her gently, the way Peggy had seen Eliza do with little Philip. Lafayette smiled at the baby, a genuine smile, and murmured something tender in French to her.

" _S_ _alut, ma petite oiseau. Et mon dieu, que t'es belle. Ça vient du côté de ta mère, j'en suis certain, car ton père a une visage d'ours..."_

Theodosia looked up at him with her wide, black eyes. At the sound of his voice, her little face warmed into a wide, toothless smile. She gurgled contentedly at Lafayette, who beamed back at her, plainly delighted.

"She likes you, Major General," Burr said, unnecessarily.

"Can you blame her?" Peggy asked.

She'd thought Lafayette was by now incapable of surprising her. Thought she'd known every way she could possibly love him. But this…Imagining Lafayette on his hands and knees, playing at horse and rider with a little boy not two feet tall. Lafayette singing a lullaby to a wide-eyed girl of his own. Telling them bedtime stories, tucking them in at night, keeping them safe. Peggy wanted to laugh and cry both, and wasn't sure which to do first.

Fortunately, she was able to refrain from doing either. Aaron Burr was one of the last people she wanted to explain a paroxysm of emotion to, even in his current and unprecedented good mood.

With the pleasant distraction of little Theodosia, the visit seemed to pass quickly. Though it was over an hour, it felt like only minutes before Lafayette and Peggy were saying their farewells and spilling out again into the street. She pressed close to him, siphoning the warmth from his body as their breath rose opaque in the cold.

It struck her as odd, for a moment, that they had not seen the elder Theodosia Burr for even a moment. But no, she reminded herself, that was unfair. Word about town was Mrs. Burr suffered from ill health—a lie just vague enough to defy any sort of closer scrutiny. More likely, Mrs. Burr's absence had nothing at all to do with her health, and much more to do with the rumors circulating Albany about how quickly her second marriage had followed on the heels of her first husband's death. A conversation any right-thinking woman would be quick to avoid, were it possible.

Poor woman, Peggy thought. It must have been so dull, locked up in that great house, with no one but Burr for company. At least she had the child now.

Peggy nestled closer to Lafayette as if to spite the imagined gossips. "I never knew you liked children," she said, as they moved away from the Burrs' residence toward the center of town.

"What did you think?" he laughed. "That I ate them for breakfast?"

Perhaps it was unwise, pushing the subject so far, but Peggy's contribution to their relationship so far had been a never-ending series of unwise decisions, and look at where they'd gotten her.

"I think you'd make an excellent father," she said slyly, looking at him sideways. "And of handsome children, too."

A year ago, a remark like that would have caused Lafayette to dissolve into a hacking cough before attempting a heavy-handed change of subject. But he was learning quickly. He kissed her softly, a teasing, exasperated kiss, before looking at her with his head cocked to one side.

"Do you spend a great deal of time imagining what my children would look like?"

Peggy shrugged. "Oh, now and again. It's a nice thing to think about."

"Only because you never saw me as a child. I promise you, awkward and uninspiring as I am now, it was much worse twenty years ago."

"'Awkward and uninspiring'?" she repeated. "You? I refuse to endure such slander."

"Well," he murmured, and twined his arms around her waist. "I have learned a few things since then."

Peggy shivered as his lips brushed the tender skin of her neck. It felt electric, electrifying. She gasped, stunned that he would dare and absolutely delighted that he had. "Here?"

The breath of his laugh wandered along her throat. "Why not? Here. Anywhere. Everywhere."

He certainly _had_ learned a few things.

Reasonably, she should have protested. They were standing in the middle of the city where her father lived, where his commanding officer lived, where rumor was the law of the land and cruel gossip its currency. But he kissed her again, more urgently this time, and her best-planned protests crumbled into a low, wordless hum and a breath that hung thick in the air.

"How far to your rooms?" she managed, finally.

"Half a mile."

Half a mile had never felt so far.

"Come on," she said. With a Herculean effort, she disentangled herself from his arms.

He gave a small whimper of protest as she separated herself from him, an impossibly endearing, childish sound. Peggy took him by the waist, leading him farther down the street.

"But—" he protested.

She laid two fingers on his lips, silencing him mid-sentence.

"For what I want to do," she said, "I promise you, we'll want a room."

Abruptly, Lafayette had quite run out of protests.

 

* * *

 

They threw open the door to the boarding-house like a clap of thunder, a small dusting of snow blowing in at their heels. The landlady looked up with interest. She had been sitting behind the counter crocheting what might have been a sock, if one was feeling generous and squinted a little.

"Monsieur le Marquis," she said. She'd butchered the pronunciation as all New Yorkers did, but nevertheless clearly enjoyed the way the phrase _Monsieur le Marquis_ sounded when spoken in her boarding-house. "It's early yet, I didn't expect you back until…"

She trailed off, a fierce blush rising in her face. The landlady had caught sight of Peggy, flushed with rapid walking, still hand-in-hand with Lafayette. Peggy grinned. An inappropriate laugh threatened to bubble over, but she clutched her own self-possession as fiercely as his hand.

"Change of plans, madame," Lafayette said graciously, with a small bow Peggy knew was meant to hide his smile. "Now, if you'll excuse us…"

He pulled Peggy up the rickety stairs to the third landing, where he quickly unlocked the first door on the left. They ducked inside, and he closed the door behind him as though afraid an animal would escape if he left it open too long.

Compared to Peggy's bedroom at the Schuyler manor, Lafayette's rooms were startlingly bare. A frosted-glass window on the far wall let in muted, barely sufficient light, illuminating the room's tobacco-stained wood paneling, the scuffed floors, the understuffed sofa. On the slanted desk beneath the window, weighted down with a half-full bottle of ale, a dog-eared copy of Rousseau's _Confessions_ splayed open to a page in the middle.

He stood in the center of the room, already having kicked off his boots and shrugged off his coat, looking utterly at home in the surroundings.

"Not much for a marquis," she joked.

"That is your fault," he said, grinning.

"Me? How?"

"I had no intention of staying this long," he replied. "If not for you, I'd be back in France, living in my own chateau."

"Well, I'll have to make it up to you, won't I?"

"Oh, I insist. It's a very nice chateau."

And before she knew it, he had swept her up in his arms—stronger than he looked, as she was constantly remembering—lifted her clean off the floor and, like a husband carrying his new bride over the threshold, bore her into the back bedroom, buoyed by the glittering sound of her laughter.

The bedroom was no grander than the rest of the flat, but Peggy couldn't stop smiling. The coarse mattress against her back felt like the softest down. That was, until Lafayette's kiss drove her from her own brain, prevented her from feeling anything else, thinking anything else. She moved to her knees, not breaking the kiss, feeling his fingers navigate the buttons lining the back of her dress along her spine.

The cool air of the drafty room felt heavenly against her bare skin; the dress landed against the floor some ten feet away. Her hands were no less eager than his, easing him out of his jacket, tugging his shirt over his head, navigating the button of his trousers. He helped as best he could, occupied covering every inch of Peggy's body with kisses that turned her skin to stars, her mind to mist. Why did they tell people to wait? What was the good in putting off perfection?

It felt so incredible she barely even wondered how Lafayette had learned to kiss a woman this way in the first place.

"What happened to the shy, awkward boy who went off to war?"

" _You_ happened to him," he whispered. "Do you miss him?"

"Don't _stop_ , you idiot."

He laughed, loud enough that the neighbors would surely hear. She lay back, and he moved above her, languid like a dance, one lean thigh on either side of her hips. His hand caressed her shoulder, a wicked spark in his eye, and Peggy thought, as she had thought a thousand times since that night at Eliza's wedding, that she'd never seen anyone so beautiful. A fairy-tale soldier, waltzed out of a novel, but better than that, because his flaws and anxieties and hesitations gave her something real to hold onto, something to long for.

And all made better still by the impossible, irrational fact that he wanted her. Wanted her as she wanted him, although not as much because how could he, she wanted him so badly she thought she would faint with the urgency of it.

"Are you sure you want this?" he asked. A rough, quiet voice, as though swallowing down some wordless tremor.

Peggy would have laughed, if that wouldn't have wounded his feelings. She curled one hand into his hair and pulled him down to her. "Yes," she said, and said it again with every heartbeat, "yes, yes, yes—"

"Monsieur Lafayette, I—oh."

Peggy's heart stopped.

Why in the name of God hadn't they locked the door?

She looked in horror at Lafayette. His expression was the perfect mirror image of her own.

That did it. If her father caught word of this, Philip Schuyler wouldn't even need to lift a finger. She'd drop dead of embarrassment all on her own.

Lafayette whispered something in French, something she didn't catch but knew from the inflection to be a curse. Then, with an impressive show of dignity, he shifted to the side of Peggy. With a gallant flick of his wrist, he twitched the sheet over her, preserving what of her modesty could still be preserved. Then—she saw the way he set his jaw before doing it—he rose naked from the bed, carefully keeping his backside to the door. He scooped up his trousers from the floor, gracefully shimmied into them, and turned to face the stammering, crimson-faced servant now standing frozen in the doorway.

"Knocking, I believe, is the custom," he said.

Peggy, from beneath the sheet, thought she might vomit from embarrassment, but Lafayette's voice had come out as cool as could be. Every inch the aristocrat, one who had been caught in the middle of more scandalous activities than this. It was powerfully at odds with the anxious way he crossed his arms, then uncrossed them, then put his hands in his pockets, then removed them again.

"Yes, sir, of course, I never meant to interrupt—"

"And yet here we are. Do you require something?"

"A letter for you, sir." The servant thrust it forward; the paper rustled in his trembling hand. "They say it's urgent."

"For their sake, I hope they're right." Lafayette snatched the page, then looked at the servant expectantly. "Is there anything else?"

"N-no, sir."

"And will you mention this to anyone, for any reason at all?"

"Not a word, sir."

"Good. You may go."

The servant bowed low, then bolted through the door and back down the stairs, slamming the door behind him. Lafayette sank down on the edge of the bed—his hands, Peggy could see, were trembling. Leaving the safety of her sheet behind, she sat beside him and curled an arm around his shoulders.

"Well," she said, doing her best to reassure him. "That didn't go quite as planned."

"Peggy, I could _die._ "

 _Die_ was perhaps a bit melodramatic, but she knew what he meant.

"Next time we'll lock the door, is all," she said, convincing herself as much as him. "You put the fear of God in him, anyway. Aren't you going to read that?"

She gestured at the letter. Catching sight, just as he did, of the seal adorning it. A crowned man atop a golden throne, surrounded by three fleur-de-lis.

She heard his breath catch slightly in the back of his throat, before he nodded grimly and slit open the envelope with the side of his finger.

The page within was covered in grand, flowing handwriting, at least as many flourishes as there were letters. Peggy tried to read over his shoulder, but the French she'd picked up in her recently renewed study was not enough to master this. She settled for reading his face instead. That, at least, was perfectly legible.

His frown deepened with each line. After a moment, he ran his left hand over his mouth and stood up, pacing to the door and back as he read. At last, he put it down, tilted his head back, and sighed. He did not speak.

"Who is it from?"

"Who indeed." He sighed again, and let the hand holding the letter drop to his side. "His Majesty Louis XIV."

Peggy's jaw dropped. "The King of France?"

"Unless there's another Louis XIV. Paris is on the brink of revolution. The country is in financial ruin. The people are finished with patience."

A chill settled in the pit of Peggy's chest. He hadn't finished the thought. Probably he didn't need to. But if he meant what she thought he meant, she wanted to hear him say it.

"But you already knew that."

"Now His Majesty is calling for an Assemblée des Notables in two months' time, to address the crisis. And he wants me to be a part of it."

"You mean…"

"Yes. He wants me to leave for France within the week."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Lafayette and Peggy. Cockblocked by the King of France.
> 
> Thanks for reading—as always, drop a comment or a kudo if you enjoyed to make my whole week!


	10. At Daybreak

> _Peggy,_
> 
> _I love you. Let's start there._
> 
> _I love you so much that writing "I love you" conveys barely a quarter of what I mean, and there aren't any words that will do better. But you have to understand, Peggy. I don't have a choice._
> 
> _I have to protect my home. My country. It might seem strange, that I still show loyalty to my king. But revolution or not, when His Majesty calls for me, you must understand I can't say no._
> 
> _This is the chance I've waited for, Peggy. He's giving me the chance to help negotiate the freedom of my people. I can't let that go. But I can't let you go either. And yet it's too dangerous, too completely impossible for you to come with me. And yet I can't leave you. And yet—_

And yet, and yet, and yet.

Lafayette threw down his pen with a snarl of frustration and shoved back his chair. It shrieked across the worn floorboards of his flat, which creaked as he stood and paced to the door. He snatched up his overcoat and swept through the door.

Damn writing to hell. Alexander always said that writing was the only way for a man to organize his thoughts. Apparently Alexander's thoughts had never been as far-flung and chaotic as this, a confusion that left Lafayette drowning in a whirlpool of "and yet"s.

He couldn't write a letter. The words wouldn't come. And anyway, writing a letter was the coward's way out. He'd have to tell her in person.

Just as soon as he decided what he was going to tell her.

He took the stairs two at a time, buttoning his overcoat against the January chill as he went. The front room of the boarding-house was dark and silent, save for the fluttering snore of the landlady as she dozed in her chair behind the counter. She didn't open her eyes as he paced through the room and into the street.

In the charcoal gray of pre-dawn, Albany was nearly deserted. It must have been earlier than Lafayette thought. He'd been unable to do anything but toss and turn from midnight on. The night had seemed to last longer than it had. Buildings still dozed behind closed shutters, their lamps doused. Somewhere overhead, a bird twittered, the echoes dancing from rooftop to rooftop.

Lafayette observed it all with the grim melancholy of a man in a sickroom, saying goodbye to a friend who wouldn't last the night.

How many times over the years had he dreamed of returning to Paris? To see the glittering lights and walk the winding cobbled streets, to hold a conversation without the suspicious sideways glances Americans reserved for foreigners. To speak and be spoken to in his own language.

And the _Assemblée des Notables._  To rub elbows with the most powerful men in France. To speak before the king. To make him understand the importance of representative suffrage, of the voice of the people, to bring that voice into the palace itself, to make him _hear_ …

The thought sent the blood thrilling through Lafayette. It was the same all-consuming urgency he'd felt in the early days of this Revolution, all purpose and determination, before the challenges and dangers could rear their heads. Revolution was always glorious, before it happened. And this time, it was his people he'd be fighting for. His country. His home.

But Peggy…

He stopped walking and groaned, tilting his head toward the sky. He could almost feel himself being pulled in two directions—his right arm jerked toward France, his left pulled west, toward the Schuyler manor.

Something had to give. He didn't know what. But something.

He laughed, realizing.

The idea was ridiculous, absurd in its clarity. Anyone in Albany would have thought Lafayette was a madman, standing in Mercer Street at four-thirty in the morning, laughing at nothing. But Lafayette no longer cared what the world thought. In that moment, there was only one man whose opinion he valued. Only one man with the ability to help stop the hurricane rocking Lafayette's brain.

And if that man was also one of the only people awake at four-thirty on a Saturday morning, well, so much the better.

Not leaving himself time for second-guessing, Lafayette jammed his frozen hands into the deep pockets of his overcoat and set off toward the brownstone manor on the opposite end of town. It was a long walk, but urgency made it seem only an instant before he stood outside the wrought-iron gate separating the front walk from the main road.

Lafayette paused at the very end of the path. His nerves had appeared as quickly as the idea had. Suddenly he found himself petrified of walking forward. The house reminded him so powerfully of the man who inhabited it—strong, classical, unmovable—that he almost imagined its foundations would speak to him.

Nerves made him imaginative, apparently. Maybe he was mad after all.

He gave himself until the count of five to compose himself before walking forward. The snow crunched under his boots, echoing loudly in his ears. Reaching the door, he opened a hand to knock. But even before his knuckles connected, the door swung inward, revealing a glowing golden circle of candlelight and George Washington's smiling face.

"Lafayette! Good morning," he said, too cheerful for the hour. "Too early for you ordinarily, I should think. Is everything all right?"

Lafayette let his still-raised fist fall awkwardly back to his side. "Yes, General. Fine."

"Not a general at the moment, my boy, thank God. It's peacetime. Call me George."

Lafayette nodded, privately knowing that he'd call the King of France "Lou" before he called General Washington "George." Washington stepped to the side, beckoning him inside.

"Quietly now. Martha's asleep upstairs. I'll have Billy bring tea to the back parlor, where we can talk."

Lafayette stepped into the house, first knocking the snow from his boots, and let Washington close the door behind him. "You Americans and your tea," he said in a dry undertone, earning a laugh from Washington.

"Yes, well, we did go to war over it," Washington remarked, as he led Lafayette down a long, carpeted hall toward the back of the house.

"If you're telling me I nearly died at Brandywine so you could have a decent cup of tea..."

"Oh, for freedom and democracy, too, of course. But I still think the tea tipped the scales in the end."

Lafayette grinned. His nerves persisted, but there was something about Washington's presence that made the situation easier to bear. The general ushered him through an open door into a warm, cheerful parlor, a bright fire already dancing in the hearth. On the mahogany table in front of the sofa, a silver tray bearing the accouterments for tea was already laid out. Billy must have been an absolute shadow, to have anticipated Washington's needs so closely.

Still bone-cold from the walk, Lafayette took a chair near the fire. The tingling shock of warmth against his skin called back the grim reminder of another night, when he and Washington had both sought refuge from the winter, in the violent dark of Valley Forge.

No. Not now. There was more than enough to think of without indulging memories in the bargain.

"Are you finished with the business in Philadelphia, then?" Lafayette asked, as Washington settled onto the sofa and poured himself a cup of tea.

Washington grimaced. "If only. It's not a Constitutional Convention so much as a Constitutional Marathon. I slipped away for a few weeks is all. I couldn't bear the strategy, the gamesmanship, your friend Alexander proposing his own system of government for six hours without pausing for breath."

Lafayette winced. "I wish I could say that surprised me."

Washington laughed, then regarded Lafayette over the rim of his teacup. His searching gaze always made Lafayette both deeply uncomfortable and oddly proud. "Tell me, then. What are you doing awake? Early mornings are for anxious old men. Youth should be asleep."

In that moment, Lafayette's impulsive plan seemed to him unprecedented in its stupidity. He had a decision to make, and what did he do? He woke up his former army commander at five in the morning to ask vague questions about his romantic future. Brilliant.

If Lafayette's father had been alive, he'd have laughed his son out of the parlor. But his father wasn't alive. The closest thing he had to family now was a handful of querulous uncles across the ocean—and, now, the Schuylers, whose existence was the reason he found himself in such agonizing need of guidance. But he and Washington had talked about many things during the war: practical, political, sharply personal. And the general had no sons. And so, maybe…

"I was wondering, sir, if I could ask your advice."

Washington smiled. "The young approaching the old _asking_ for advice? Truly ours is a brave new world. Go on. Ask."

Lafayette leaned forward, focusing his attention on his own hands clasped between his knees. He could still feel Washington's gaze taking him in, but knew he couldn't form these sentences and maintain eye contact at the same time.

"I think you know I'm in love, sir," he began awkwardly.

Washington raised his eyebrows. "My dear marquis, if this is a proposal, I am flattered, and also married."

Lafayette was startled into laughter—and, as was doubtless Washington's intention, became comparatively relaxed. "You remember Peggy Schuyler, sir."

"Schuyler?"

"The blockade runner."

"Ah, yes." Washington nodded. "She was certainly something, that woman."

"Certainly _is_ something, sir," Lafayette said, then didn't so much speak the rest of the sentence as let it fall out of his mouth. "I would like to marry her."

Any stranger would have thought Washington really was Lafayette's natural father, from the way his entire face lit up with an instant smile. He quickly set the teacup to the side and reached over to shake Lafayette by the hand with the buoyant enthusiasm of a man half his age. Lafayette couldn't help but grin, even as Washington very nearly detached his arm from his body.

"Excellent. Truly, truly excellent. Leave our war behind you, and think to the future, and be happy."

"That," Lafayette interposed, delicately extricating his hand from Washington's grasp, "is why I came for advice. Although I appreciate your blessing."

Washington abruptly remembered himself. He sat back and folded his hands over his stomach. "Blessing bestowed, my boy. Now. I gather there must be some complication, from the way you persist in sighing like a war widow."

Lafayette took a deep breath. Tell him, he thought. He's on your side.

The story poured out from him. The message from the king. The _Assemblée des Notables._ The impossibility of bringing Peggy into another brewing revolution, and the equal impossibility of leaving her behind. He didn't suggest remaining in New York instead of returning to France. Washington knew perfectly well that wasn't an option.

He didn't know how long he spoke. Nor did he remember the last time he had spoken so honestly with anyone who wasn't Peggy. He'd always felt separated, somehow, from other Americans. They couldn't communicate naturally, no matter how hard he tried. They were too separate: different histories, different languages, a different way of seeing the world. But here with General Washington, that veil had fallen away. He felt understood. He felt _seen_.

Reaching the end, he sheepishly looked up from his hands. The room was silent, save for the crackling of the fire and the slight creaking as someone walked across the floor above. Washington watched Lafayette in thoughtful silence.

"Do you know what I think?" he said at last.

"Would I have asked you if I did?"

Washington chuckled. "What I think, my boy, is that as soon as you leave my house, you should ask the lady what she wants to do."

As if it were that simple.

"But—"

"But you worry she'll feel obligated to say yes," Washington interrupted, precluding the argument already forming on Lafayette's lips. "I know. But do you know what else I know? The woman you love isn't an idiot."

"Far from it."

"You see? You trust her already to make the right choice. And I think you know what that is."

"I—"

Today, it seemed, wasn't the day for Lafayette to finish sentences.

"Your problem," Washington interrupted again, gesturing with a vague wave of the hand toward Lafayette's person, "your problem is that you've always been afraid of getting what you want."

This time, Lafayette didn't even try to begin a sentence.

"You have a martyrdom complex if ever I've seen one. And that's all well and good, my boy. Sacrifice in the name of liberty and justice, well, they write songs about that for a reason. But martyrs aren't always the best role models. Not unless you're truly enamored with the idea of coming to a dreadful end, stuck full of arrows."

Washington stood up and arched his back in a lazy stretch; Lafayette instinctively rose too. For a moment, he thought he was being dismissed. A hot wave of shame rose from his chest— _you see, this is what you get for being a fool when you ought to know better_ —but to his surprise, Washington didn't show him to the door. Instead, he took both of Lafayette's hands in his own, fixing him with a look Lafayette did not dare break.

"You told me, when we were camped in Valley Forge," Washington said, "that it was your job to tell me the truth. Do you remember?"

Lafayette nodded. "I do."

"Well. Now it's my turn to tell you the truth. And I tell you now that if you don't go to the lady, say you love her, and ask her to marry you, you'll be the greatest fool I have ever had the misfortune to welcome into my parlor. And just last week, John Adams was here for tea."

And Washington pulled Lafayette into a tight embrace—one that didn't even surprise him, it felt so natural. The general, so reassuring, so sympathetic, so present, felt more like a father in this moment than Lafayette's own father had ever done.

In a moment Washington pulled back and clapped Lafayette briskly on the shoulder.

"Was that what you were looking to hear?" he asked.

Was it? Lafayette couldn't have said what he'd wanted to hear. As far as what he needed to hear, however, Washington had found the perfect words.

He would ask Peggy, then. Tell her everything. Let them decide together what to do from there. But if he lost Peggy Schuyler's love today, it wouldn't be for lack of trying.

"Thank you, sir," Lafayette said—he didn't trust himself to speak more loudly, or the euphoric, mad laugh building in his chest would explode outward. "Thank you."

"At ease, soldier," Washington said gently, leading Lafayette back toward the front door. "For the first time in your damn life."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dad!Washington and Son!Lafayette is my absolute favorite historically accurate dynamic. God bless these two idiots.
> 
> A million thanks as always for reading! Tip your fic writers: comments, kudos, feedback of all sorts. It brings light and joy to this otherwise awful world.


	11. A Modest Proposal

"Peggy. Peggy, wake up."

Angelica might as well have been speaking to a brick wall. Peggy made a soft grumbling sound and pulled the blankets around her ears. Although late morning sunlight struggled to slip between Peggy's thick curtains, the room was by and large dark as midnight. Angelica rolled her eyes, then crossed the room to stand half a foot from the bed.

"Peggy," she said, louder.

"Go away."

"Peggy, get up."

"I can't," came Peggy's voice from beneath the blankets. "I'm asleep."

Angelica grinned. "All right then. I'll tell Monsieur Lafayette he should see himself out. Clearly you're too asleep to see him."

It took less than a second. The blanket was hurled to the floor. Peggy dove out of bed, her hair an absolute disaster. She fled in her nightdress to the wardrobe, flinging the door open with a wail. She hadn't seen him for two days. Not since the letter had come from France, after which he'd been cagey and distracted, keeping his distance, ignoring her messages. And now that he'd finally come, she was wearing her nightdress. God in Heaven.

"How long has he been here?" she demanded, yanking out the first dress she could lay hands on.

Angelica smirked and sat on the edge of the bed. "Five minutes? I've been trying to wake you."

Peggy swore. The nightdress sailed across the room to land in a crumpled heap beneath the window. "Father isn't downstairs, is he?"

"No, you're safe there. If you—"

Before Angelica had time to finish the word "hurry," Peggy turned around, fully dressed, and ran her hands backward through her hair. With a vigorous shake of her head, she looked at Angelica and spread her arms wide.

"Well?" she asked. "How do I look?"

Angelica laughed. "Well enough. Considering. Now go on, before your heart explodes."

Without another word, Peggy tore out of the bedroom.

She descended the stairs at a breakneck pace, her skirt streaming out in a pool behind her. It occurred to her, halfway down the stairs, that she didn't even know if Lafayette came with good news or bad. It could easily be bad. He could have come to say goodbye. Could have come with his suitcase in hand, on his way to the harbor. For all she knew, this could be the last time she'd ever see him.

But she would't let herself think that way. Not until she knew for sure she had no other choice.

On the last step, skidding around the corner, Peggy felt her feet slip out from under her. Too fast. She swore and flailed for the banister, jolting her spine but avoiding the fall. Lafayette, she saw now, stood in the entrance hall. He watched her with his head cocked to the side, a wry smile at the corner of his mouth.

He still wore his coat. But he didn't have a suitcase with him.

"Graceful, as always," he said.

She pulled a sarcastic curtsey. "I wasn't expecting you so early."

Lafayette raised his eyebrows. "It's half past eleven," he said. "I waited as long as I possibly could."

Peggy heard the hint of something unsaid in his words. She descended the last stair and stood near him, taking him in. A bright, reckless look in his eyes. Both hands in his pockets. Skin chapped from the cold. Unless she was very much mistaken, the Marquis de Lafayette had not been in bed at all last night.

"Waited to do what?" she asked slowly.

"Peggy," he said quickly. His words tripped over themselves, barely coherent in his eagerness. "I don't want you to feel obligated in any way. Say yes, or say no. I understand completely in either case. But if I don't ask you, Christ, Peggy, if I don't ask you I'll never be able to live with myself—"

A wild hope began to rise in Peggy.

"Lafayette, she said sharply.

He skidded to a sudden verbal stop, looked up at her in surprise. "Yes?"

"Ask me the question."

Lafayette flushed, fiddled with something in his pocket. "It's not as easy as, as, the words,  _merde, c'est franchement impossible,_ what are the  _words_ —"

"Ask me the _question_."

He took a deep breath. She'd never seen him so excited, or so in need of a drink.

"Peggy," he began again.

His hand emerged from his pocket. Opened, palm spread out. A white-gold ring, square diamond encircled with sapphires, glittering against his hand.

She stopped breathing.

He bent to one knee.

"Peggy Schuyler, will you marry me?"

She tried to say _yes_. She really did. Every part of her brain told her mouth to say _yes_. But somehow she screamed like a child instead. She threw her arms around Lafayette, who rose to his feet to return the embrace, and felt a joy fizzing from the bottom of her heart that defied words and logic and everything. She didn't know if she began the kiss herself or he did. All she knew was that she didn't ever want to stop. Didn't ever want to let go of this awkward, noble, charming, handsome, kind man, her fiancé, the man who would be her husband.

And she wouldn't have to stop. Not ever. Her _husband._

"Was that a yes?" Lafayette murmured in her ear.

She laughed, a merry chime like sleigh bells. "Yes, you idiot. Of course."

He kissed her again, more slowly this time, savoring the moment.

She felt her heart contract as the metal band of the ring embraced her finger.

"Did you…did you just have this _lying around_?" she asked, looking at the ring.

He grinned. "It was my mother's. I couldn't leave it in France. And God blesses the prepared, anyway."

France. She would be going to _France._ That's what this meant. The thought should have frightened her. Peggy, after all, had never left New York, except for a journey with her father to London when she was too young to remember it. Maybe she'd be afraid, still, later on. Now, with Lafayette's ring on her finger, nothing in the world could frighten her.

"What's going on here?"

The pit dropped out of her stomach.

All right, one thing in the world could frighten her.

Philip Schuyler stood in the doorway to the front parlor. He held his hat in one hand, had one arm into the sleeve of his coat. But at the sight of his daughter and the French soldier embracing in his entrance hall, he had frozen directly in place. Lafayette looked at Peggy as if he were facing death by firing squad. She looked back at him, realizing just how serious the situation was.

"You didn't ask him?" she hissed.

"When would there have been time?" he whispered.

"Literally _any waking moment this week,_ Lafayette, you idiot _—"_

"Come here," Schuyler interrupted, and pointed into the parlor. His hat, still in his hand, quivered as an indignant signpost.

Lafayette and Peggy shared a glance. Her lips pressed tightly together, she took his hand in hers and led him into the parlor.

She took a seat beside the fireplace, crossing her legs at the ankle beneath the chair. Lafayette stood at the center of the room, vulnerable as the primary target of Schuyler's ire. He interlaced his fingers behind his back, legs slightly apart in parade rest, waiting for the explosion of verbal gunfire they both knew Schuyler was building up to.

Peggy looked at Schuyler. Schuyler looked at Lafayette. Lafayette looked at his feet.

"So," Schuyler said, letting the poison in the syllable fester. "So."

"Sir," Lafayette began. Peggy had never heard his voice quite like this. "I'm sure you understand the difficult position I—"

"I'll admit, Monsieur Aristocrat, I didn't think you had this kind of deception in you," Schuyler interrupted. He hadn't taken a seat either, and held his hat still before him like a sword. "I thought you would run out on my daughter the moment a wealthier piece of skirt caught your eye. Or you'd make her false promises and then skip out to the Continent to spend your family fortune on drink and women. But this, sir, this, fraternizing in my very _hallway,_ this goes _beyond—_ "

"Sir," Lafayette tried again.

Peggy shook her head. Better leave this to the one person in the room who actually knew how to deal with her father.

"Father," Peggy snapped. "We weren't _fraternizing._ "

"What would you call it, then, my worldly daughter?"

"Sir," Lafayette said a third time, finding his voice at last. "I asked your daughter to marry me. And she accepted."

The room went deathly silent. So silent Peggy heard the slight rustle of Lafayette's coat as he shifted his weight to the opposite leg. Schuyler's eyes narrowed.

"Marry you," he repeated.

"Yes, sir."

" _Marry_ you. You want my daughter to marry you, so you can leave her when you sail across the ocean in a harebrained revolution, where you'll be dead in a week and leave her a widow on the other side of the Atlantic—"

"Sir, forgive me," Lafayette interjected—he looked taller now, Peggy realized, a side effect of sudden daring—"but I do have some experience winning harebrained revolutions."

"And he's not leaving me, Father," Peggy said. "I'm going with him."

She stood up and laced her arm through Lafayette's. She could feel his hand shaking, but he stood straight and met Schuyler's eye. Maybe she could lend him some courage through her touch. At the moment, Peggy felt like she could do anything. Wrestle a bear. Summon a ghost. Challenge the world.

Schuyler took a step forward. His right hand was unconsciously wringing the brim of his hat.

"You're asking my daughter to leave her family and her home and her country, and for what? For you? You think you deserve…"

"I know I don't deserve her," Lafayette said. "She deserves better than me. She deserves everything. That's why it took me so long to ask her. I know what I'm asking is mad. I'm asking her to live a different sort of life in Paris, a difficult life, and it would have been easier to let her go..."

"But I'd never have let him," Peggy interrupted.

Lafayette gave Schuyler a rueful smile. "And, as I'm sure you know, sir," he added, "it's very difficult to argue with your daughter."

Schuyler had listened to this speech with a wholly expressionless look. But at this, he gave a short, sharp laugh. The hat, Peggy noticed suddenly, he had set behind him on the arm of the chair.

"Yes," Schuyler said, "I'd noticed that."

He sat back in the chair, folded his hands together, and rested them on his belly. A relaxed, comfortable pose, were it not for the icy way he watched them both.

"Is it true, Peggy?" Schuyler asked. "Are you determined to throw away everything for this wild crusader?"

"Father," Peggy reminded him patiently, "we'll be living in Paris, not Hell."

"Little difference."

They said nothing for a long moment. The clock ticking the seconds on the mantelpiece seemed unbearably loud.

At last, Schuyler sighed. "Monsieur Lafayette," he said, "I think you know you're not my first choice for my daughter."

"I'm well aware, sir," Lafayette answered.

"Oh, you're pleasant enough. But make no mistake, you're everything we fought against in '76. You're aristocratic. Landed. Titled. Rich. And, worst of all, European."

Peggy groaned. "Father, he fought _on your side,_ " she hissed.

Lafayette gently touched her arm, as if to say _let him finish._

"If American boys aren't good enough for my daughters, I weep for my new nation. If I had my choice, I would send you packing for Paris and keep Peggy in New York when she belongs. But—" he said, holding up a finger, "but I do not have my choice."

Peggy tightened her grip on Lafayette's hand. Hope. Dangerous, but powerful.

"You love her," Schuyler went on. "So. As well you should. You say you'll take care of her. As you must. And she loves you. So there's that too."

Schuyler sighed, closed his eyes, then looked at Lafayette with something that wasn't quite acceptance, but closer to it than he'd ever come.

"If it's my friendship you're looking for, Monsieur Lafayette, you'll never have that. My respect, well, that remains to be seen. My permission…"

He paused, clearly relishing the sense of drama. Peggy wanted to take her father by the shoulders and shake him. Say what you have to say, Father. Yes or no. Say it.

"Yes, you have my permission."

Peggy rushed forward and threw her arms around her father, who after a deeply startled moment embraced her back.

"Thank you," she said, over and over. "Thank you."

"Promise you'll write, that's all," Schuyler said gruffly. If Peggy had been paying attention, she might have seen the old general blinking rather more than was usually required. "And see you keep your velveteen courtier in check. See he doesn't run through your dowry in six months and cast you aside."

Peggy looked at her father, exasperated and amused. "Father, he owns his own chateau," she reminded him. "I doubt he's marrying me for money."

Schuyler ignored her. He hoisted himself from the chair again and faced down Lafayette, imposing still despite the shifted atmosphere of the room. "And _you_."

"Yes, sir." Lafayette wisely didn't press his luck by calling Schuyler "father."

"Remember what you told me. My daughter deserves everything. See you manage to stay alive long enough to give it to her."

It was perhaps the most insulting, antagonistic way Peggy had ever heard anyone tell another person to be careful.

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

Schuyler extended a hand, and Lafayette shook it, unable to repress the grin that spread across his face. Peggy could sympathize; she had no doubt she currently sported a similar expression.

It was, she thought, wholly impossible that one woman should be allowed to be so happy.

 

* * *

 

Alexander looked up from his third beer and glanced over his shoulder. The door to the Cross and Crown opened, admitting Lafayette in a snow-dusted overcoat, with Peggy following half a step behind. Alexander shared a look with Hercules Mulligan, seated on the other side of the table. Mulligan rolled his eyes and faux-retched. Plainly he wasn't in the mood to sacrifice his evening to two lovers.

"Good evening, Monsieur Lancelot," Alexander said lazily, leaning back, as Lafayette and Peggy took the two remaining chairs. "You look well."

"Better than ever," Lafayette said. He reached across the table, took Mulligan's beer, and drank it straight down. Mulligan spluttered something nonverbal in protest.

Alexander looked at Lafayette in surprise. He'd never seen Lafayette in a mood like this, not even after the British surrender at Chesapeake Bay. It captivated his interest, so much that he didn't even notice as Mulligan switched their glasses, giving Alexander the empty one and taking a swig from the full.

"Well?" Alexander asked pointedly. "What's happened? The second coming of Christ, by the way you're smiling?"

Lafayette didn't answer. Instead, he glanced across the table at Peggy. She raised her left hand, smiling ear to ear. The ring on her fourth finger caught the tavern candlelight, glittering like a meteor.

Mulligan choked on Alexander's beer.

"May I present," Lafayette said, beaming, "the soon-to-be Peggy du Motier, Marquise de Lafayette."

Alexander grinned. "Like I've always said," he began. "Immigrants—"

He and Lafayette finished the sentence together.

"We get the job done."

Across the table, Alexander and Lafayette high-fived.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always for reading! I live for comments/kudos, if the spirit moves you.
> 
> Next chapter we're hopping oceans into a new revolution...


	12. The Ambassador

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My sincere apologies to everyone who knows more about the French Revolution than I do, which is...a lot of people.

In their small cabin aboard the Triton, Peggy smiled and nestled closer against Lafayette in bed. The steady rhythm of his heartbeat sank into her body, even as her breath slipped in time with his. The tiny bunk in their cabin was hardly bridal-suite caliber. Not only was it too narrow for two people to sleep comfortably, but Lafayette was too tall for it. He'd had to curl his legs up toward his chest to fit the narrow space, and the bump of his knee pressed hard against Peggy's shins.

Peggy, though, couldn't have minded less. They weren't exactly traveling from New York to Brest in high style, but they were together. They could have bunked in a bird's nest, and both Peggy and her husband of seven hours would have been happier than anyone in the world.

She sighed and closed her eyes, letting her mind drift. The cool metal of the ring on her left hand kept her from falling asleep entirely. She ran her left thumb along the metal, as if to remind herself it was actually real. She wasn't alone in this, she knew. She'd seen Lafayette steal quick glances at the gold band on his own ring finger more than once, since they'd left the docks.

Peggy wasn't the kind of girl who'd dreamed of her wedding day since she was a little girl. None of the Schuyler sisters had. Angelica had played at being a lawyer, calling her younger sisters before an imaginary bench and cross-examining them for hours until the three girls broke courtroom procedure in a fit of giggles. Eliza had been a boundless daydreamer, inventing stories of horses riding through the clouds above Albany, or tiny fairies that crept through the secret passageways of the manor, whispering in the sisters' ears as they slept and spinning dreams out of their words. Peggy had always been outdoors, running races with the servant boys, rolling down hills until her head spun and her governess had shouted herself hoarse.

She'd hoped she would marry, of course. Someone nice, someone reasonable, someone game for anything. The alternative was spending the rest of her life at home with her father, which was hardly ideal. But she hadn't given much thought to the act itself.

Which was just as well, probably. Her wedding hadn't been conventional, but with no expectations to shake, it had been perfect.

It had been an afternoon wedding, in Trinity Church. A small ceremony. Had to be, given the wedding's theme of "chaos, war, and precipitous haste." Peggy's family was there, Eliza the matron of honor, little Philip earnestly fulfilling the duties of ring bearer. Lafayette's family, of course, was a non-issue—either dead or an ocean away. But a crowd of friends had backed him at the church, standing in for brothers: Alexander, Mulligan, Burr, Laurens.

Lafayette's father had passed away more than twenty years before, so there was no last-minute man-to-man advice from that quarter. But Peggy had seen, just before she entered the church, George Washington himself lean over to clap Lafayette encouragingly on the back, with a wink and a thumbs-up.

Lafayette had looked like a fairy-tale prince in his military uniform. Peggy had her doubts about her dress, a white full-skirted gown she'd found ready-made downtown, but Eliza assured her it was perfect. And then with a kiss, and a few unsurprising cat-calls from the groom's side of the church, and Peggy's father crying more than anyone expected, it was over.

Married.

The wedding finished at two. The Triton set sail from the harbor at three-fifteen. Peggy only had time to embrace her family, reassure her father one last time that she wouldn't let Lafayette waste her fortune at a roulette table in Monte Carlo, and change into something more suitable.

And then here they were, on her wedding night, cramped in this tiny cabin on a ship bound for France.

Peggy couldn't have imagined a better night if she'd tried.

"When we arrive in Paris," Lafayette said, almost in her ear, "I promise to make sure our marital bed is more…" Wincing, he trailed off in search of the correct word. His cramped posture was doing nothing for either his back or his eloquence.

"Human-sized?" Peggy prompted.

"Exactly."

"I don't know," she said. "I don't mind it. It feels like an adventure. Robinson Crusoe, or something."

He laughed. "I know I haven't been the best suitor, but at least I haven't stranded us on a desert island for thirty years. Give me that much credit."

The Triton shifted slightly, cresting a wave larger than the rest. Or, at least, that's what Peggy told herself, to justify the way she rolled over to lie halfway atop Lafayette. He ran a hand through her loose hair, his smile brilliant through the dark.

"You really think there's room?" he said.

"Lafayette, love," she said, between kisses, "I'm a Schuyler. We're resourceful. I'll _make_ room."

Lafayette took precious little convincing. He rolled Peggy onto her back, narrowly avoiding cracking both their heads on the low ceiling above them. His kisses drifted south, lips teasing at the curve of her neck, along the ridge of her collarbones. All the while, his hands gently rolled her nightgown up above her hips, giving his hands room to play.

Peggy gave a small  _tch_ of impatience and pulled off her nightgown, tossing it across the cabin. "We're husband and wife," she said. "There's no need to take your time."

Lafayette grinned and reached for the fly of his breeches.

"Believe me," he said. "I don't intend to rush."

 

* * *

 

Something wasn't right.

The Triton docked in the French port town of Brest without incident. Its passengers disembarked calmly, blending from gangplank to street without a hitch. But Peggy knew at once that something was wrong.

She clung to Lafayette's arm, disliking her own weakness but not in the mood to fight it. His warm body gave her something familiar to lean on in this unfamiliar town. Its cold air seemed unpleasantly alive, cruel with the scent of brine and the sparkling scales of gasping fish in rope nets along the dock.

It wasn't France itself that frightened her. Unfamiliar cities, strange customs, all that was more exciting than frightening. Albany was all very well, but it was only a corner of the world, and she itched to see more of it. Yes, there was the small hiccup that her French wasn't going to win any awards, but she'd seen Lafayette get by for years. And her French now was at least as good as his English had been in '76.

No, it wasn't the country that unnerved her. It was the people.

In every shop window, on every streetcorner, lining the docks and the boulevards, the streets of Brest brimmed with people. But not one of them spoke a word. The salty air crackled with suspicion, the silence of people who had more to say behind your back than to your face. Each face shadowed, narrow, weary. Each brow darkened. Peggy saw one woman spit at Lafayette's feet, though he pretended not to notice.

The entire voyage from Manhattan to Brest, Lafayette had talked about Paris. He'd gone on about it almost without stopping to breathe. And who could blame him? He'd been away for years, and France was his home. Of course, Peggy thought, he had to know things would be different now. The King of France didn't call his nobility back to the palace from the four corners of the world because everything was business as usual. But it alarmed Peggy, how the little she'd seen of the country reminded her of staring into the mouth of a cannon.

Knowing the fuse had been lit.

Waiting for the explosion.

When Lafayette smiled at her, it seemed strained. But if he didn't feel the need to run, then she wouldn't run either. After all, they wouldn't get far—there was an ocean in the way.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"Our escort is waiting for us at the stables," he replied, his tone resolutely light. "He arranged for a coach to take us to Paris. On the way, he can tell us everything we need to know before we appear before the king."

Peggy tripped over nothing. Lafayette steadied her hastily, catching her a moment before she fell against the cobblestones.

"When _we_ appear before the king?" she repeated, her voice a rattlesnake's hiss. "You want me to meet the King of France?"

Lafayette cleared his throat uncomfortably. "I thought I mentioned that."

"Trust me. I'd have remembered."

"I told His Majesty I'd return to France immediately after my wedding. The captain of the Triton said His Majesty eagerly awaits meeting you."

Peggy knew this wasn't Lafayette's fault. One didn't speak to kings the way one spoke to other people. You couldn't just _leave things out_ like having a wife,  _leaving things out_ was treason. She knew it, but she still wanted to slap him. Her grip on his elbow tightened until it seemed like she was trying to throttle his arm.

"Lafayette, I speak French like a _six-year-old._ "

"I'll help you," Lafayette said earnestly. "He doesn't expect brilliant conversation. All he wants is for you to smile and curtsey and tell him you're delighted to make his acquaintance."

Peggy glowered at him. "And that's what you want from me in France? To smile and look pretty and say what you tell me to say?"

Lafayette blanched. "No, I, I meant…"

"I'm not an ornament you can show to people to win them over—"

"I know that, _ma chérie,_ but the king—"

"The king can hang himself for all I care, I don't—"

"Apologies, monsieur, madame. Am I interrupting something?"

The voice, and its unmistakable Virginian drawl, startled Peggy so badly she nearly tripped again. To her faint satisfaction, Lafayette had flinched too. So much for the impeccable reflexes of soldiers.

They turned away from their argument to face the speaker. A tall, rangy man stood outside the stables, watching them. He wore a faint smile and a waistcoat in a frankly alarming shade of violet. Peggy instantly felt strongly about him, but wasn't quite sure if those feelings were positive or negative.

Lafayette, at least, seemed happy to see the man. Although, to be fair, Peggy suspected he'd have been happy to see anyone who didn't spit in his face and swear at him.

"Thomas," Lafayette said, and warmly shook the man's hand. "Thank you for meeting us."

"Anything for the hero of the revolution," the man said. His accent spread his vowels in a vaguely insolent way, and Peggy's ambiguous feelings started to lean toward dislike. "And this must be Madame la Marquise."

Peggy's curtsey was something less than thorough. "And you are?" she asked.

"Forgive me," Lafayette said. "Peggy, this is Thomas Jefferson, the American ambassador to France. He'll be our escort to Paris. General Washington highly recommended him."

Jefferson gave a laconic half-bow.

"Mr. Jefferson, my wife, Peggy."

Peggy nodded at the ambassador. If he wouldn't trouble himself to give a full bow at her introduction, she certainly wasn't going to curtsey twice.

"The coach is ready, monsieur," Jefferson said. "And if you want my advice, I recommend we leave now. Brest isn't a welcoming place to be at the moment."

"I noticed," Lafayette said grimly.

"Your luggage?" Jefferson asked.

Lafayette shrugged. "My valet will bring it afterward."

"Excellent. Your chariot awaits, madame." Jefferson extended a gallant arm as the coachman opened the side door. Peggy gave Jefferson a withering look, then climbed in by herself, daring him to protest.

Lafayette grinned. "Careful now, Thomas," he said. "It's not my good opinion and respect you have to win, it's my wife. She's the one with the real grasp on things."

Peggy's earlier irritation with Lafayette faded. She shifted across the seat in the coach, making room for her husband to sit beside her. It was hard to be angry with him when he was like this, confident, self-assured, at home in more ways than one. And it didn't hurt to have a man like Thomas Jefferson next to him, for comparison's sake.

"So, Mr. Jefferson," she said, as he sat opposite them and snapped the coach door shut. "What news do you have to share?"

The coach lurched into motion, rattling across cobblestones that would soon give way to the smoother dirt roads connecting Brest and Paris. Jefferson leaned forward, clasping his hands between his knees. Suddenly, he seemed very tired.

"Plenty. Little of it good."

"Thomas, don't spare my feelings," Lafayette said. "News doesn't travel quickly across the ocean, but I've heard of unrest. Riots. I know."

"You don't know half of what's happened," Thomas said. "Financial ruin, that's one of the worst parts of it. Money worth almost nothing, and it's still falling. Shortages of food. Prices rising. And they blame the nobles. The monarchy. The king."

Lafayette cursed. "And His Majesty is to call the Assemblée des Notables? A barely political body without representation of the people? The commons must be ready to storm the palace at dawn."

Jefferson scoffed. "It's not exactly what I'd have recommended either," he said. "But _you_ try convincing the King of France he's being a stupid son of a bitch."

"That's what I'm here to do," Lafayette reminded him. "Although maybe not in those words exactly."

Jefferson grinned. "You'll have better luck than me," he said. "You were actually summoned to the damn assembly. Unlike me, the Virginian in the corner no one will speak to."

"My husband just helped a group of rebels overthrow a king," Peggy interrupted. "Do you still think His Majesty will be on his side?"

Jefferson smirked. "True, your husband ought to be careful how loudly he talks about his American enterprises. Or perhaps you, madame," he added, with a wink, "might use your powers of feminine persuasion to convince—"

"Thomas," Lafayette began, but Peggy interrupted him before he'd finished saying the name.

"Mr. Jefferson," she said, "Think very carefully before you finish that sentence, or I will personally break every one of your fingers."

Jefferson drew back with a look of unmasked alarm. Lafayette, from beside Peggy, fought a hopeless battle to keep from dissolving into laughter.

"When I said 'win my wife's good opinion,' Thomas," Lafayette managed, "I should have added 'your life may depend on it.'"

"Yes," Jefferson said slowly. "I begin to understand."

"Good." Peggy smiled, enjoying how Jefferson still leaned as far back in his seat as he could. "Now, Mr. Jefferson. If you'd be so kind as to bring my husband and I up to speed on the political climate. We'll need that, before he leaves for the Assemblée next week."

Jefferson opened his mouth, then closed it again, unable to find the words to break the silence.

Lafayette grinned. "You heard my wife, Thomas. I promise, she doesn't bite."

"Not often," Peggy said.

Jefferson sighed. From his point of view, it was shaping up to be a very long journey to Paris.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, Jefferson, you spectacularly dressed piece of garbage. Bless.
> 
> Kudos and comments are my lifeblood—leaving one or both is always much appreciated!


	13. Disquieting

Brest had been alarming, but it was nothing compared to Paris. Lafayette knew it wasn't just the city that had changed. He had, too. He'd still been a boy when he left the country, and was now a married man upon his return. But still. Paris felt like a volcano, rumbling under the soles of his boots. The agitated shouting from the clubs and cafés in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, the suspicious glances passing between neighbor and neighbor.

This Paris was hungry. It didn't care what it fed on, so long as it was fed.

Lafayette didn't much care for Jefferson. In his opinion, that much ostentation had no business being contained within one man. But he was nonetheless grateful for the ambassador's presence. Lurid jacket notwithstanding, Jefferson sauntered through the Parisian streets as if he were the one who'd been born there. Maybe if they spent enough time together, some of Jefferson's unwarranted confidence would rub off on Lafayette.

That was, if Peggy didn't have the ambassador murdered first. Judging by the venomous looks she shot periodically in Jefferson's direction, that was far from a given.

"Are you staying in town?" Lafayette asked Jefferson.

Not that he cared much. The question was more to break the tense silence that had descended as they walked in front of the Tuileries. Peggy's interest in the flawlessly manicured hedges and Greek-inspired marble statues might have been genuine, might have been an excuse not to look at Jefferson, might have been both.

Jefferson nodded. "Rue Saint-Jacques, on the left bank. If you need anything. Your audience with the king is tomorrow?"

Lafayette pointedly ignored Peggy's small "hmm" at this remark. She could continue yelling at him when they got home

"Yes. We'll visit you tomorrow afterward, to let you know how it goes."

"Tomorrow keeps getting better and better," Peggy muttered. Both Lafayette and Jefferson pretended not to hear.

"Well, here we are," Lafayette said. They were in fact still three blocks from the house, but Jefferson didn't need to know that. The sooner this meeting was over, the more likely it would end without bloodshed. "Thank you again for the escort, Ambassador. We'll be in touch."

"Certainly. Monsieur. Madame."

Jefferson bowed low enough his forehead nearly touched his knee. He looked like he was about to kiss Peggy's hand, but she gave him such a foreboding look that he contented himself with the bow instead. Jefferson swaggered off into the streets, a speck of violent violet soon lost to view.

Peggy grimaced. "Odious little man, isn't he?"

Lafayette laughed, leading her further down the Rue de Rivoli. "You might have been a little more polite, love. He _is_ your ambassador."

"He could be the ambassador from Hell, for all I want to do with him," she shot back.

Lafayette knew the tone in her voice. Her ire was eighty percent a coping mechanism, to give her something else to think about besides the grim silence of the city, the looming audience with the king. He could sympathize. Her strategy for dealing with it was more effective than his: a silent, unspoken anxiety that rose from the pit of his stomach and threatened to cut off his breath.

"Next time I'll make sure Lucifer himself meets us at the harbor," Lafayette said. "No more dealing with middle men."

Peggy laughed. It surprised him, how badly he'd needed to hear her laugh.

"Are we here?" she asked, looking at the row of hedge-lined houses in front of them.

He nodded. "My home in Paris. Don't tell your father it's not a château. My influence has limits."

She shrugged. "I'll tell him we stayed in Notre-Dame with eight hundred servants. He'll believe anything."

He led her up the path toward the door, feeling hope rise in him with every step. His country was changed, his future uncertain, but within the walls of this house, the Paris he thought he knew might still exist. Peggy at his side, he reached into the pocket of his navy-blue coat and unearthed a small key. The door opened smoothly at his touch, and he ushered Peggy into the hall.

The house, to his surprise, was neither empty nor dark. The entrance hall gleaned with light, the glare from the lamps glittering off dark wooden floors polished to a shine. The curtains had been thrown back, admitting what light remained on the winter afternoon. In the parlor off the main hall, the sound of a crackling fire drifted toward him, a cloud of warmth that brushed aside the chill of the streets.

There followed, immediately, the sound of a gasp, and an exclamation Lafayette couldn't have spelled with a gun to his head.

A woman of fifty or sixty, hair midway between black and gray, hastened in from the adjoining room. Without hesitating a second, she seized Lafayette in an embrace that might have cracked a rib or two.

_"Monsieur Lafayette, vous vivez encore,"_ she said.

Lafayette laughed and embraced her in turn. " _Comme tu vois,"_ he said.

" _Et vous n'ècrivez qu'une fois par mois,"_ she said, breaking the embrace to pull back and look at him appraisingly. " _Imaginez. Vous étiez élévé dans une grange, hein?"_  

"I didn't expect to see you away from Chavaniac," Lafayette said, switching to English for Peggy's benefit.

The woman clicked her tongue and shook her head. "And leave you to run this house by yourself?" she asked in heavily accented English. " _S'il vous plaît, monsieur,_ don't think me so lax in my duties. If I left you alone, you'd be living like a disgusting bachelor within two weeks."

Lafayette laughed. Her irritation sounded so similar to Peggy's assessment of his New York apartment. He wondered if they'd compared notes.

"But you forget, I'm not a bachelor anymore," he said, stepping to the side to emphasize Peggy's presence.

Peggy gave a small, vaguely uncomfortable wave. Her utter bewilderment about the strange woman in Lafayette's home could be imagined. Lafayette began introductions, but he was too slow on the draw.

"And you must be Madame la Marquise!" the woman interrupted. "Lafayette has written to me about you, but he hardly did you justice."

Peggy smiled. "Odd. He usually tends to sell me a little too strongly."

"I knew I would like you, madame. My name is Catherine, madame. Only Monsieur le Marquis' housekeeper, but I try to be useful."

Lafayette snorted. whatever changes Catherine had undergone in the years he'd been away, convincing self-deprecation had obviously not been an object of study.

"Catherine," he said, "humility doesn't become you. Don't try it."

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," Catherine replied, true to form. "Men write speeches in praise of my humility from here to Calais."

"Catherine raised me, after my mother's death," Lafayette added, to Peggy. "Despite her foul mouth and taste for gin, she's a second mother to me."

Catherine scowled and swatted Lafayette on the shoulder. "Can a woman have no secrets?"

He grinned. "Not when you smell of liquor and you're already shouting at me."

Catherine flung out one arm, as if her full wingspan were needed to express her complete exasperation. "You see how he slanders me, madame?" she said to Peggy.

"Vilely," Peggy agreed. It had taken her a grand total of two minutes to warm to Catherine. "You see why I never take him at his word. Unless he's complimenting me, in which case I trust him completely."

Catherine tapped the side of her nose with a conspiratorial wink. "You'll be a perfect wife for him, I see. Keep him from forgetting his place."

Lafayette turned his eyes toward the ceiling and sighed. "Something tells me I've just walked into a very dangerous situation."

Catherine grinned. "You could use a little danger. It keeps a man honest. Come, madame," she said, taking Peggy by the arm. "I'll draw you a hot bath, and you'll forget all about the dreadful chill outside. Supper will be on the table by seven."

And, still chatting, Catherine and Peggy swept up the staircase and out of sight. Lafayette was left standing in the entrance hall, snow dusting his boots, still wearing his coat.

_Housekeeper, indeed._

"I've known you almost thirty years!" he called up the stairs, gesturing uselessly at his coat. "You've known her four minutes!"

"They were a very pleasant four minutes," Catherine called back.

He sighed and shook his head, easing himself out of his own coat and boots. Apparently his fears that Peggy would find it difficult to adapt to Paris had been unfounded. Now all he had to worry about was a domestic coup. His wife and his housekeeper leading a revolution against him.

Well, not all, he reminded himself. He crossed to the parlor and slouched in an armchair near the fire. His eyes slipped out of focus, half-watching the flames dance in the hearth. He hadn't realized how tired, how tense he was until they'd finished their journey, and Jefferson's gadfly presence had stopped flitting over his shoulder. Given silence and room to spread out, his exhaustion expanded like a noxious gas, curling outward to fill the space available.

The king. He'd have to see the king tomorrow, and begin the Assemblée's proceedings on Friday.

Peggy was fully capable of performing well in front of anyone, up to and including the King of France. And though Lafayette himself wasn't eloquent by nature, he knew he could do it. Alexander had taught him more than how to seduce women. Not that he'd ever willingly speak for six hours in front of a rapt audience, not that he'd relish speaking in front of any size crowd under any circumstances, but Lafayette could hold his own.

But there was so much at stake. Paris was a city under siege by itself. If Lafayette's call for general sovereignty, for the Estates-General, for a new constitution, if that failed…

But it wouldn't fail. It couldn't. He wouldn't let it.

God willing, something would happen at the Assemblée on Friday. If not, France was on a path straight to hell.

 

* * *

 

Peggy stretched across the bed in the master bedroom. She spread her arms and legs, taking up as much space as she could, and sighed. "You were right," she said. "This is nicer than the ship."

Lafayette smiled and slid into bed next to her. The warm blankets were heaven compared to the freezing wooden floor against his bare feet, but somehow he couldn't feel warm.

"When will you learn, dear, that when I make a promise, I keep it?" he asked. "Move."

Even through the dark, he could imagine her scowl as she scooted over to her side of the bed, giving him more room.

"Catherine is delightful," she said. "I think we'll get on well when you're at the Assemblée."

He didn't answer. Through supper with Peggy and Catherine, through the arrival of their luggage and the small domestic hurricane that accompanied it, this house had almost felt like a home. As if tomorrow and the next day would never come. He'd managed to snatch a few beautiful hours of forgetfulness. But as evening turned to night, thoughtfulness came with the lengthening shadows. And now she'd mentioned it. Now he couldn't pretend anymore.

"Lafayette?" she said. "What is it?"

"Nothing. It's nothing."

She sighed. Suddenly, the space beside him in bed was cold again, as she got up and relit the lamp. She was impossibly beautiful at night. The sparkle of her hair, her bold eyes against the white of her nightgown. And that look in her eyes. The determined look, the one that would accept neither evasion nor changing the subject.

He sat up, drawing the blanket up to his hips. Elbows resting on his knees, he looked at the backs of his hands. Peggy sat in bed again beside him, laying one hand on his shoulder as much in expectation as comfort.

"We've been married two weeks and already you're keeping secrets from me?" she said, only half-joking. "I'd hoped we could at least make honesty last a month."

He kept avoiding her eyes. "I don't want to worry you."

Peggy cupped one hand beneath his chin and lifted up his head, leaving him no choice but to meet her eyes. Lafayette flinched, not in discomfort but in surprise. She was smiling. A sad smile, but a smile nonetheless. Without that smile, he knew, he'd have been lost long ago.

"I'm your wife," she said. "It's your job to worry me, and it's mine to worry you. And I promise I'll give you enough to worry about as time goes on, so you might as well get a head start while you've got the chance."

He shook his head. How was it possible he'd not only found a woman like Peggy, but she was willing to marry him? It defied logic. A stroke of fortune best left unexplored for now.

"I'm afraid," he admitted, softly.

"Of what?"

"Of what happens if it goes wrong. Everything depends on this."

"I know," she agreed. "I walked through these streets same as you, and I'm not stupid. I know something big is coming. All you can do is try your best to make sure it's the right kind of something."

She made it sound so simple. And in a way, he supposed, it was. All he had to do was everything he possibly could. But what if everything he possibly could wasn't enough?

As if she'd read his thoughts, Peggy kissed him gently on the cheek, then added with a shrug, "After all, you mobilized the entire French navy from a thousand miles away. How hard can this be?"

"That was different. Any Frenchman would give his right arm for a chance to fight England."

"Well, you know your audience, at least. Now, for the more important question," she said, and looked at him severely. "What are you going to wear?"

He blinked. "Wear?"

"Of course. It's the King and Queen of France. You can't very well turn up in your traveling clothes. Has everything arrived from Brest?"

It seemed, to Lafayette, as if Peggy were speaking Chinese. He'd focused so narrowly on the political underpinnings of his audience that the pageantry had completely slipped his mind. He sighed. More proof he was bound to botch the thing in the first five minutes. Had Peggy not brought it up, he'd probably have showed up in his Continental Army uniform and caused some kind of international incident.

"Yes. But you know I'm hopeless with clothes."

"I know you are," she agreed, so quickly he might have been offended. "I'll help you. First thing in the morning. Now," she added, and kissed him, "go to bed. It's late. You're tired. I'm tired."

He nodded, and rose to turn off the light again.

"There'll be plenty of time to worry in the morning," Peggy said, just as he doused the light.

A reassuring idea, he thought, in its own way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would it be a story of mine if there wasn't a cranky woman with a gin problem in it? (No. It would not.)
> 
> Thanks for reading! Next up: Peggy and Lafayette Take Versailles.
> 
> Comments and kudos are, as always, wildly appreciated :)


	14. No More Status Quo

" _Monsieur le marquis de Lafayette, et sa femme la marquise."_

The majordomo's voice rang through every corner of the long, opulent room. It ricocheted off the chandeliers dripping cut crystal from the high ceiling, coming to rest in the thick gold damask of the curtains. Lafayette extended his arm, and Peggy took it, though neither of them turned to look at each other. Peggy hadn't been raised in France, but she knew not to look away from the couple seated at the far end of the hall, dressed in cream-colored satin trimmed with ermine and embroidered with silver.

Peggy tightened her grip on Lafayette's arm and thanked God that her husband had taken her advice about his clothes. He looked perfect in his deep blue waistcoat, and her sky-blue gown had been chosen to match. Expensive enough to avoid disrespect, but nothing to risk competing with Louis XVI, King of France, and his Austrian queen Marie-Antoinette.

Lafayette bowed low, straight-backed, one leg behind the other. The kind of courtly bow Peggy had never seen him use, not in the world of American politics. Peggy curtsied. Her knees trembled with each moment she held it. She suspected the king and queen knew it, were testing her on purpose.

"Your majesties," Lafayette said.

At last, the king spoke. "Monsieur and Madame de Lafayette. Kind of you to come."

Lafayette had seen the royals before, of course, in his youth. But Peggy was staring despite herself. Although, of course, anyone who dressed as the Bourbons dressed, and who commanded as much attention as the Bourbons commanded, must have expected a certain amount of staring. The king, perhaps ten years older than Lafayette, was a wiry, almost feminine-looking man, with dark, mournful eyes. His smile, when he turned it on Peggy, somehow looked equal parts sincere and mocking.

And the queen. Of course, the queen.

Six inches taller than her husband, proud-profiled and straight-backed. She looked down at Peggy and Lafayette with the disdain usually reserved for stray dogs. Peggy had expected that, of course. Jefferson had taken care to warn them of the queen's personal opinions about Lafayette's American exploits.

Lafayette appealed first to the king. His wry suspicion was hardly the ideal mood for a royal audience, but it was a step above the queen's loathing.

"I only regret I couldn't be here sooner, your majesty," Lafayette said. "I thank you for your patience."

"Of course," the queen cut in. "We are flattered you found a break in your schedule of toppling monarchies and slaying royalists to respond to your own king's commands."

Lafayette paused, mouth slightly open. Peggy couldn't blame him. What exactly was the right response to a remark like that? The silence stretched a beat longer than was comfortable. For the first time, Lafayette glanced at his wife.

_Dammit._

Peggy nodded and prayed that her French would hold its own. She smiled at the queen, the same smile she'd given to Thomas Jefferson the day before. Utterly undistinguishable from a genuine smile, unless you knew her as Lafayette did, in which case the insincerity could not have been clearer.

"I'm afraid I'm to blame for my husband's delay, your majesty," she said—the gods of bilingualism had heard her prayers, and though her accent was shaky, her words were sure. "I flatter myself in thinking the time wasn't ill spent, however."

The queen may have smiled, may have smirked. It was hard to tell the difference.

"You must be the new marquise de Lafayette," she said. Peggy decided it would be inappropriate to remind her that the majordomo had announced her not three minutes before. "Ambassador Jefferson spoke most highly of you and your family. Though Ambassador Jefferson has the habit of speaking highly of most things."

Peggy curtsied, generously choosing to address the compliment and overlook the insult. "He was certainly effusive in your praises, your majesties. But in that respect his words seem to have come up short."

The king gave a small _hmm_ of approval. "Well, Lafayette. We confess we were skeptical when we heard you had married an American, but now that we see her in person, your decision is less bewildering."

"Less bewildering." A skill for delivering compliments was, apparently, not a prerequisite for the monarchy.

Lafayette bowed. "She is nearly as dear to me as your own royal selves, your majesty."

Peggy kept her expression flat. Had they been alone, she would have asked Lafayette if that weren't laying it on a bit thick. The queen seemed to share Peggy's assessment. She raised a single delicate eyebrow, but Lafayette had been more concerned with the king's reaction.

Louis graced the marquis with a small, slightly sad smile. "We can well believe that. We wish you and your new bride happiness."

"Thank you, your majesty," Lafayette replied. "We will make our gratitude well known to you through our faithful service in the time to come."

If Lafayette couldn't feel Peggy's skepticism radiating from her person, he wasn't paying attention. But then, Peggy wasn't experienced with royalty. The closest thing to a king she'd ever encountered in America was General Washington, and a man with less patience for flattery she'd never met. Louis didn't work like a Washington, or even an Aaron Burr, who fed on flattery like a hungry wolf. Louis swallowed praise like a serpent swallows a bird's egg: whole, with no regard for what lived beneath the smooth surface.

It was, perhaps, a sign of the times that Louis accepted the heavy-handed compliment with his first genuine smile. "We believe it," he said.

Louis had to be using the royal "we." The queen made it clear she didn't believe it in the slightest.

"You are prepared for the coming assembly, monsieur le marquis?" the king went on.

"Of course, your majesty," Lafayette said. "I've been giving the matter my full and undivided attention."

"A kind thing for a new husband to say," the queen said. "Perhaps that is to be expected in a man of politics. _Patrie_ first, _amour_ a distant second."

Lafayette flushed slightly—the king flushed deeper. Considering how long it had taken Louis and Marie-Antoinette to generate an heir, and the cruel rumors of the king's potential impotency that had swept Paris in the meantime, Peggy could hardly blame the king for his discomfort. In a last-ditch effort to dispel the awkwardness, Peggy cut in.

"The most remarkable thing about men of politics, your majesty, is that they're brilliantly adept at giving more than one thing their full and undivided attention."

The queen laughed. "Quite. I imagine at the moment, your revolutionary husband is giving his full and undivided attention to our protection, as well as how to separate my husband's head from his shoulders."

The pit of Peggy's stomach turned to ice.

"Majesty—" Lafayette began.

Already too late. Already they wouldn't listen to him. Already his influence was nearly useless. Already the gulf between royalist and revolutionary was yawning wider, with no space left for moderates to straddle the gap. Peggy gripped her husband's arm  tighter, willing him to think of something brilliant to say. Her own courtly conversation wouldn't save them here.

But the king interrupted.

"The Marquis de Lafayette has served our interests faithfully," he said. "He weakened England's hold in the west. He secured us a new ally in the nation of America—with which, need we remind you, our territory of Louisiana shares a border. He remains as committed to a strong, unified France as we are, however unorthodox his methods. And," he added sharply, looking directly at Lafayette, "we trust we can rely on you to prove the truth of our assessment at the assembly, monsieur."

Lafayette bowed. "Of course, your majesty. I am yours to command in all things."

"Excellent. Remember that. We will speak further of this at a later date."

The king had not exactly said "Get out of my sight before I change my mind about your value and have you hanged," but Lafayette had been at court enough—and Peggy had enough brains—to read between the lines.

"Yes, your majesty," Lafayette said. He bowed to the queen, who gave no indication she'd noticed.

And then he and Peggy politely backed from the room, and the majordomo shut the door behind them, leaving them alone in the hallway. Still blinding in its richness, with countless mirrors and gold trim and floors tiled in swirling mosaics. But dulled now, filtered through a veil of heart-pounding fear that still wouldn't fade.

Ignoring all the rules of polite behavior, Lafayette sank to the ground to sit where he stood, leaning his back against the baroque wallpaper. Peggy crouched beside him.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

"I think I'm about to be sick," he croaked.

"Please don't be sick here," she said. "I don't think we can afford to have the marble cleaned."

Satisfied he wasn't going to die on the spot, Peggy extended a hand and pulled Lafayette to his feet.

"I thought they were going to have me hanged from the chandelier for a traitor," he said.

"Well, all the more reason not to linger," Peggy said, heading for the door.

 

* * *

 

_20 June 1789, London_

Peggy shifted in her chair, trying to find a position that would keep her corset from stabbing her between the ribs. The experiment was a rousing failure. She sighed and cursed London's obsession with fashion. It would be the death of her before the week was out. At least in Paris, the women had other things to think about besides getting one's waist down to the circumference of a tea saucer.

Angelica grinned at Peggy from across the table, in the gold-accented dining room in Whitechapel where she and her husband John had met Peggy for tea. _Tea._ What was the point of fighting a revolution if they were still going to meet each other for scones in posh London tearooms?

John was paying, though. Out of politeness, she decided to keep the remark to herself.

"I'm surprised your husband let you come to London for two weeks," Angelica said.

"What do you mean?"

"Only that, I mean, well, in the scheme of things you're still a newlywed, aren't you?"

Peggy took a sip of tea—any more and she was worried the corset would spring a leak. "It's not as if we were married yesterday."

"Is that all the time it takes to wear out a French husband?" Angelica said. "Clearly their reputation as master lovemakers has been an elaborate conspiracy all along."

John feigned choking on a mouthful of tea and excused himself from the table. Peggy and Angelica's laughter nipped at his heels.

"Does your husband even take you to bed?" Peggy teased. "Or is it a firm handshake and then goodnight?"

Angelica clicked her tongue. "Worry about your own bedroom, dear. If Lafayette is sending you away to London for two weeks, I'll bet you a hundred pounds he's found himself a mistress."

"Tell John you owe me a hundred pounds," Peggy said cheerfully, helping herself to another thick slice of cinnamon tea cake. A reckless challenge to the stability of her corset, and a turncoat traitor's way to have an afternoon meal on top of that, but she'd be damned if she'd let cake this good go to waste. "He's been locked away with politics for the past year, it seems like. Dawn to past dark, every day. Sometimes he even sleeps at the Palais de Justice."

"Is that what he tells you?"

"That's what he _does._ So unless he's having an affair with the boy who cleans the fireplaces at the Palais, I think I'm safe."

"Well," Angelica said, aside, "you never can tell with Frenchmen."

Peggy ignored her. "I told him I'd be happy to stay with Catherine, his housekeeper, that I wouldn't mind only seeing him Sundays. But I think he feels guilty, leaving me alone so often. He said this might be the easiest time for me to visit you in London without him, and I think he's right."

"Why without him?" John asked, returning to the table now that the conversation no longer threatened any improper surprises. "Is that a French custom, sending one's wife overseas without a chaperone?"

"No," Angelica interrupted. "That's a custom for people who trust their wives."

Peggy cut in, smoothing over a rift between her eldest sister and the British brother-in-law she was quickly discovering she couldn't stand. "Anyway," she said, "I don't think my husband, hero of the American Revolution, would feel too welcome walking into a London tearoom."

Given the way John inhaled sharply and looked over his shoulder to see if anyone had heard her, Peggy was inclined to believe she'd been right.

"What politics is he up to, then, the marquis?" John asked. "Does he share any of those details with you, or—"

"My husband trusts me with his political affairs," Peggy said.

Angelica took a sip of tea that, if sips of tea could speak, would have said _I told you so._

"He and Mr. Jefferson worked out of our house before the king agreed to call the Estates-General earlier this year. My husband's idea," Peggy added, making no effort to hide how much she enjoyed knowing more about the current state of international politics than John. "Bringing together the clergy, the nobility, and the commons, to negotiate a new constitution that speaks to the needs of all three. It's delicate work, but my husband has never been afraid of negotiation."

"No," Angelica agreed, grinning. "If he talked Father into letting him marry you, I imagine the whole of France won't be much of a problem. You say you've worked with Mr. Jefferson? How do you like him?"

Peggy's facial expression must have said quite a bit more than she'd intended, judging by the way Angelica burst into laughter that turned more than one head at the surrounding tables.

"Oh, I hope you give him that look at least twenty times a day. He does so deserve it."

Peggy looked sheepishly down at her teacup. "I, er, may have called him an epicurean peacock with more lace on his cuffs than brains in his head."

Angelica's laughter became even harder to repress, until more patrons of the tearoom began to glance at her, then exchange disapproving looks with their tablemates over the rims of their cups.

"I miss you so much, Peggy," she said. "You were always the best of us at telling the truth."

Peggy hadn't realized, not until she found herself in her sister's company again, how much she missed them too. Catherine was an impeccable companion, and had taught Peggy plenty about how to navigate Paris. What streets to explore, which to avoid, how to hold one's gin, which ladies in the neighborhood were worth engaging in conversation or inviting for supper. But there was nothing like the bond between the Schuyler sisters, nothing like it in the world, and she hadn't known it fully until she'd lost it. Peggy wondered, briefly, what Eliza was doing—her letters had flagged over the past several months. Hopefully her marriage was stronger and less irritating than Angelica's. If not, Peggy thought, Alexander would have plenty to answer for.

"You were quick enough to praise Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, as I recall," John said shortly. Peggy wondered if this were an observation or a political accusation.

"Was I?" Angelica asked. "I remember having a few rather pointed critiques. Next time you see that man, Peggy, remind him that his next declaration might as well mention women _somewhere_ in the text. To be thorough."

"I'll bring it up." Peggy glanced over her shoulder at the smart-waistcoated server who had just appeared at her elbow. "Thank you, I think we're well taken care of," she began, but the man bowed apologetically. She noticed he held a crisply folded piece of paper in one hand.

"Forgive me, mum, but are you the marquise de Lafayette?" he asked. His South London accent mangled the name so badly Peggy rather suspected him of having done it on purpose.

"Yes," she agreed, and gestured at the paper. "Has there been a message for me?"

"Yes, mum. The messenger was told to wait for a reply, if you care to send one. He's in the lobby."

"Thank you," she said.

She took the page—and then paid the messenger no more attention. He might have grown wings and flown away for all she knew. She'd seen the name on the front of the folded page, and recognized the handwriting.

Lafayette's. No doubt.

But not his usual precise, elegant script, the one that had carefully composed letters to her spanning the length of an entire revolution. This script was erratic, the ink blotted. Whatever message he had sent her, it had been written in haste, even in panic.

With John and Angelica watching her from the other side of the table, Peggy broke the seal and read the letter, devouring every word.

 

> _Peggy,_
> 
> _The Estates-General have splintered. The Third Estate and nobles sympathetic to the cause of the people have barricaded ourselves in a tennis court and won't leave the building until the king swears to ratify a constitution put forth by the people._
> 
> _It's happening, Peggy. It's happening today. I love you._

What followed might have been Lafayette's signature, but in his excitement all the letters had run together until it could have been any name at all.

Peggy shoved back her chair so quickly a ripple of heads turning in her direction swept the tearoom.

Angelica half-rose. "Is everything all right?" she asked.

Was everything all right? Impossible to say. A match lit to gunpowder might loose the shot that saved ten thousand lives. It might cause the cannon to misfire and explode in the gunman's face. All she knew from the scrawled lines sent from Paris was that something had been put into motion. Something that had been part of her life, real or imagined, since the first night she met Lafayette, at Eliza's wedding that snowy night in Albany. Something that couldn't be undone. Whatever happened next, she had to be by his side, to play her part in a world turned upside-down.

"Revolution," she said simply, holding up the page.

Angelica nodded. She'd already seen one sister married to a political firebrand who'd take death before inaction, and Peggy was by nature more likely to rush headlong into a dangerous idea than most people. Angelica knew it was no good arguing, that logical, reasoned explanations about the risks were a waste of breath. Instead—and ignoring the conservative splutter coming from John's side of the table—she nodded, then crossed to hug her sister close.

"Promise me you'll stay safe," Angelica murmured. "Both of you. And promise you'll write."

Peggy nodded. Then she turned on her heel and bolted out of the tearoom, scandalized looks and corsets be damned.


	15. Ink and Blood

Lafayette snatched the paper out from under Jefferson's nose and scanned the words. Unsurprisingly, the ambassador hadn't taken down exactly what Lafayette had dictated, not verbatim. But then, if Jefferson hadn't done some sort of editorializing, Lafayette would have been concerned for the man's health. Lafayette scribbled out a phrase, made a slight emendation, and passed it back to Jefferson. Jefferson read the edit, then gave a small grunt of approval.

"Good idea," Jefferson said, with a small nod. Both men spoke French, Lafayette's enthusiasm not leaving him the mental energy to translate.

"I know it's a good idea. That's why I wrote it down."

Jefferson pushed away from the dining table in Lafayette's parlor. He leaned his lanky body back in the chair, folding his long-fingered hands behind his head. "I'll make a fresh copy," he said. "But it's good. Very good. Better than what they asked for."

Lafayette grinned. He suddenly felt a wild flash of adrenaline, like a reckless schoolboy skipping class in the middle of the afternoon. It was a step. A decisive step. One that thrilled him to make.

"It's perfect," he said. "You have a knack for declarations, ambassador."

Jefferson grinned. "My _raison d'être,_ as you people say."

"Let's hope my people do say that, once they've read this."

"What do you think Monsieur Danton will say, when you read this aloud in front of the Assembly?" Jefferson asked—no doubt to get a rise out of Lafayette.

Lafayette scowled, as if Jefferson had just asked him to pick up a slug with his bare hands. Jefferson laughed. Frankly, Lafayette didn't see what was funny. It was a relief, in any case, to throw off the veneer of politeness and politics that had blunted the edges of his words all week.

"Don't talk to me about Danton," Lafayette muttered. "Bloodthirsty butcher. Building a revolution is delicate. It takes a scalpel, and he's trying to do it with a cannon. And his flighty little minion Desmoulins is no better."

"What, Camille?" Jefferson asked wryly. "You can't possibly hold a grudge against Camille Desmoulins. Christ, the boy looks like he wakes up every morning and apologizes to his own shadow for inconveniencing it."

Lafayette paused, thinking of the pair of Parisians who had stood beside him at the Estates-General. Thought of the tall, thundering Danton with his scarred face and voice like a bellowing ox. Of Camille Desmoulins with his hummingbird-hollow bones and wide dark eyes. Of the mismatched pair standing side-by-side in the tennis courts where the Estates-General had transformed into the revolutionary body of the National Assembly, how the sheer force of Danton and Desmoulins' speech had carried the day, encouraged the rolling tide to continue rolling. Well enough, while they had a goal in mind to the benefit of France. But how long would their goals tend in that direction?

"Don't be fooled," Lafayette said. "A pair of jackals, the both of them. Jackals with human faces."

"A barely human face, in Danton's case," Jefferson added laconically.

Lafayette pretended not to hear. The violent leanings of Georges-Jacques Danton's policies were what concerned him, not the composition of the man's face.

"I hate him," Lafayette said.

Jefferson's face registered a complete lack of surprise. " _He_ hates _you_."

"Does he?" Lafayette asked. "I thought he called me a son of a whore in a rather amiable tone."

Jefferson chuckled. "In front of the whole Assembly, too. I don't like the man either, Lafayette, but you have to admit, he's got style."

Lafayette was prepared to admit nothing of the sort. Fortunately, he was spared the necessity. The sound of a key in the front door caused both the marquis and the ambassador's heads to turn. Soon after, a pair of voices followed the sound of the key.

"The gentlemen are working in the parlor, Madame," Lafayette heard Catherine say. "I expect they'll be at it for some time. In for an inch, these days, in for a mile. If you'd like to go upstairs and lie down after your journey, I—"

"No, thank you."

Jefferson raised an eyebrow lazily, smirking at Lafayette. Plainly he'd noticed the way Lafayette's eyes lit up at the sound of his wife's voice. Well, let him poke fun, if he wanted. It wasn't Lafayette's fault that the Virginian was an eternal bachelor, and would never feel the small thrill of a wife returning after a several-weeks absence.

"I'm not tired," said Peggy's voice, coming closer. "I'll check on my husband myself. If I need anything else, I will call for you."

"Very good, Madame."

Lafayette could just see Catherine shaking her head in disapproval. In a moment, she'd be off toward her own chamber, to open a bottle of sherry and bemoan the way her mistress and master both insisted on working to the point of death. The daydream was cut short, however, as Peggy burst into the parlor, still wearing her coat and boots, the London air barely clear from her lungs.

She shrugged off her coat and threw it across the far end of the table, just as Lafayette stood up and swept her up in his arms. Possessed by a wild blast of boyish energy, he swung her in a circle, her skirts swirling behind her, and she laughed and kissed him as her feet returned to the ground. Jefferson watched from behind them, keeping his judgment to himself.

"You've done it," Peggy said. Her eyes held the same bright sparkle Lafayette knew glinted in his own. The sparkle of revolution, of the first steps on the road to a constitution, to liberty.

"We're in the process of doing it," Lafayette amended. With so much nervous energy in the room, it was difficult not to get ahead of oneself. "The Declaration is the first step. Following that, the Constitution, and convincing the king to endorse it. And after that…"

"We can think about 'after that' when we get there," Peggy said.

She sat down at the table, pulling back the open chair between Jefferson and Lafayette. Jefferson had been propping his feet up on it, and barely had time to snatch them out of the way before Peggy sat down. Jefferson raised both eyebrows with a look of mild offense. Peggy, of course, couldn't have been paid to care less. She snatched up the rough copy of the Declaration from its place on the table, scanned the first few lines…

And, to both Lafayette and Jefferson's astonishment, began to laugh.

Lafayette glanced at Jefferson. Jefferson glanced back, his meaning perfectly clear:  _My dear marquis, I believe your wife may have gone mad._

"Mr. Jefferson," Peggy began, fighting to compose herself. She slapped the page back down on the table, pointing one finger to the title of the document.

_A Declaration on the Rights of Man and the Citizen._

"Is that what you're calling this?" she asked.

Jefferson paused. "Is that a concern?"

"My sister Angelica will want a few words with you, I think," she said, plainly still fighting not to laugh. "She had such high hopes for your next declaration."

Lafayette finally caught on—several beats behind, but still before Jefferson. "I expect you'll use this as proof that men can't do anything without a woman around," he said.

Peggy shrugged. "Your words, not mine."

"And admirable words they are, too, Monsieur le Marquis."

Lafayette flinched. He knew that voice.

He stood up, turning toward the door through which Peggy had entered. Peggy stood by his side, though whether she was reassuring him or he was protecting her, he didn't know. He'd hoped he could delay this interview until at least the next day, until the National Assembly met again, until he'd gotten a full night's sleep and eaten something resembling a square meal. But though God had smiled on their projects in the Assembly so far, it seemed His divine grace had run out.

The man standing in the doorway wore the rough woolen jacket of a day-laborer, though Lafayette knew for a fact that was an affectation. A giant of a man, four inches taller than Lafayette and some fifty to sixty pounds heavier. A blunt face, flat and wide like a lion's, the skin ridged and thick with scars. A small smirk on his expressive mouth.

Behind him, Lafayette could feel Peggy staring. He couldn't blame her, though he could fervently wish she'd regain control of her surprise.

"Georges-Jacques," Lafayette said. "Good evening. I didn't know you knew where I lived."

"Oh, you weren't difficult to find," Danton remarked. He leaned against the doorframe, as if this were his house, as if he'd been invited. "I asked where Lafayette the Conquering Revolutionary lodged, and the people were quick to point me the way. I'll try not to take offense you didn't invite me to supper."

"Had I know you wanted to meet with me, I'd have left my card," Lafayette replied. He was relieved that, despite the anxiety rising within his chest, his voice managed to remain light, flippant even. It was the kind of tone Alexander would always use to speak to people who intimidated him. Not an altogether useless thing to have learned on the far side of the Atlantic.

Glancing over Danton's shoulder, Lafayette caught sight of Catherine, who stood with an open bottle of sherry in one hand. Lafayette glared, communicating his thoughts wordlessly: _If you were only able to do one thing in my service, Catherine, one single solitary thing, I would to God that one thing was keeping Monsieur Georges-Jacques Danton out of my parlor._

"I'm sorry, Monsieur," Catherine said, causing Danton to turn and Lafayette's heart to sink. "I did tell him you were working, and that you were not to be disturbed…"

_Did you think I was being discreet for the fun of it, Catherine?_

"It's quite all right, Catherine," Lafayette said, with the same faux-cheerfulness he'd used at the Assembly all week. "I'm perfectly at leisure to speak with Monsieur Danton. You may leave us."

"Charming woman, your housekeeper," Danton remarked, as Catherine took the opportunity to exit. "Older than I usually like them, but then, it's a brave new world now, isn't it? All things are permitted now."

Lafayette's brow darkened. "Peggy," he said, "perhaps you'd like to show Ambassador Jefferson out. Monsieur Danton and I won't be long."

Danton raised an eyebrow that seemed to ask _Oh, won't we?_ Fortunately, though Lafayette could sense that Peggy would have loved to give Danton a piece of her mind, she nodded and motioned for Jefferson to follow her out. Revolution was a messy business. Sometimes the smartest move was a quick and silent exit.

Now that they were alone, Danton entered the room. Though Lafayette hadn't invited him to sit, Danton pulled out a chair and settled languidly into it, moving with surprising grace despite his bulk. Lafayette remained stiffly standing at parade rest, hands clasped behind his back.

"I assume that you and Jefferson were hard at work on the declaration the Assembly commissioned," Danton said.

"We were," Lafayette replied. His tone didn't invite further conversation. "It will be ready to present tomorrow."

"Good," Danton said. He stretched, arching his back—Lafayette, for a brief and uncharitable moment, was worried for the continued stability of the chair. "In that case, I won't keep you long. You should get some sleep tonight. Big day for you tomorrow, I expect."

"Yes," Lafayette said. Having a conversation with Danton, he was realizing, was rather like dealing with a large, unfamiliar dog. It might be friendly, or it might bite off your head for the pleasure of hearing you scream. In either case, best to tread lightly. "Can I ask to what I owe the pleasure of your company?"

"Don't waste your breath on lies, Marquis," Danton said, with a wave of his hand. "You can't stand me because I'm a provincial nobody, and I can't stand you because you're an aristocratic pretty-boy with more skill at dancing than at leading a country. Best we're both honest about where we stand."

Lafayette's reasons for hating Danton had nothing to do with his provincial upbringing, but now didn't feel like the best time to bring that up.

"All right," Lafayette said. "To what do I owe the displeasure of your company?"

Danton smiled. It occurred to Lafayette, with a feeling of deep unease, that the man was actually enjoying himself.

"I wanted to warn you," he sai. "Thought it was good form to do it in person."

For the first time since Danton entered the house, Lafayette wished he didn't keep his pistol in the bedroom. Not that he intended to shoot Danton, of course. But it would have been reassuring, having the cool hammer of a pistol in his hand, when Danton said words like "I wanted to warn you" in that terrifyingly nonchalant voice.

"Warn me of what?"

"Warn you to be very careful how you align yourself," Danton said. "I know what you think. You think this will be the same kind of revolution you fought with your silly little American friends. You think everyone will band together against tyranny, and you'll be the king's right-hand man as you were Washington's, and everything will end with a treaty and a twenty-one-gun salute and crowds cheering your name."

Lafayette shifted his weight. Not out of discomfort. More a preparation to run, should the need arise.

"But this isn't America," Danton leaned forward, folding his hands in front of him. "This is France. The people are France, or they will be. We don't need an aristocracy. We certainly don't need a king. And if you shirk your duties, if you forget that you owe your allegiance to your country and not to your noble peers, we won't need you either."

Lafayette's pulse was racing, his blood cold, but outwardly, he knew, he betrayed nothing. What came from years of staring down the barrel of a gun: a deathly composure, a grim, to-the-end unshakeable calm. He unfolded his hands from behind his back and let them hang easily by his sides, regarding Danton with a coolness and a reserve even Aaron Burr would have envied.

"Are you threatening me, Monsieur Danton?" he asked.

"Not at all," Danton said. "I'm merely apprising you of the situation."

Lafayette smiled. "Consider me apprised. Now, it's late. And as you say, tomorrow is an important day. I wonder if I might entreat you to"—he gestured toward the door through which Danton had entered—"leave the house?"

Danton rose. "Certainly. Good evening, Monsieur le Marquis. Sleep well. Dream of liberty."

When he had gone, Lafayette sank down into an open chair at the table and took his head in both his hands. All of a sudden, he felt enormously tired.

And to think their revolution was, what? A month old? Two. Good God. And he might have to deal with Danton for years.

Assuming, of course, they let one another live that long.

 

* * *

 

14 July, 1789.

Panic, in the streets of Paris.

Lafayette had rushed into the streets, pistol in the pocket of his coat, swept up in the relentless tide of humanity drawn toward the Bastille.

Breached. Stormed. Broken. It didn't matter that there had only been seven prisoners within—the symbolism was all, the symbolism was enough.

If there had been no going back after the formation of the National Assembly, this was something of another magnitude. This didn't mark a change in course. It marked a change in the composition of the world. The end of the old regime. The dawn of a new age.

Freedom.

Everywhere, screaming. Shouting. Men waving pistols in the air, women with kitchen knives in the ribbons of their aprons. Everyone armed, few knowing who they took up arms against.

Closer to the Place de la Bastille, the panic took form, coalesced into something with a name and a face and a voice. To be precise, the name and the face and the voice of Camille Desmoulins, Danton's delicate companion with the dark eyes and long eyelashes. Lafayette could hear his voice carrying through the streets, see him— _how can I see him, the little man, above the shoulders of so many men?_ —until he realized that Camille had climbed up on a chair.

"Take up arms!" roared Camille—apparently his voice had borrowed some of Danton's customary fervor. "Take up arms, patriots!"

_A little late for that, Camille, my friend. The people are a step ahead of you._

Walls crumbling. Blood, the scent of blood, everywhere. Atop the wreckage of the Bastille, Lafayette could see, waved like a sickening trophy…

It wasn't. They wouldn't.

But they would, and the severed heads of the prison guards adorned a row of pikes along the wrecked battlements.

Lafayette felt the blood rush from his face. The breath roaring in time with Camille's diatribe. He wanted to run, wanted to scream, wanted to cry, wanted to celebrate, wanted to fight, all in one wild, twisting moment.

Was this to be their revolution?

 

* * *

 

14 July, 1789.

Peggy perched on the sofa in the drawing-room, sitting on both her hands. Every second the grandfather clock counted away felt like the swish of an axe, severing another thread, widening the separation between her husband and herself. Every second that passed and he did not come home, she was certain he was dead, that the Parisian militants they called the _sans-culottes_ had killed him, their rage costing the lives of royalists and patriots alike.

Catherine sat knitting opposite Peggy, sock after sock, as if she could hold the country together by creating enough sturdy undergarments to keep it warm. The sound of her knitting needles clicking against each other was becoming intolerable.

At last, when the sun began to set and long shadows inched over the Rue de Rivoli, the front door opened, and Lafayette stumbled into the house. Peggy jumped to her feet and rushed to him. He collapsed into her arms as if someone had severed the sinews keeping him upright. In her embrace, he was trembling.

"Are you all right?" she murmured, stroking his hair with one hand, holding his body close with the other. "Are you all right? What's happened?"

"Paris is a wolf," he said in a hoarse whisper. "A wolf that will eat its own young. Its people. Its king. If I can't prevent it."

She pulled back, looked at him in surprise. "You? Lafayette, there are so many men in France. So many people who want this revolution. Why—"

"Trust me," Lafayette said grimly. "I know how this will go."

 

* * *

 

15 July, 1789.

The Marquis de Lafayette was elected to the post of Commander-in-Chief of the National Guard. Charged to keep the peace in the city. Preserve the integrity of the revolution. Further the aims of liberty. And protect the life and interest of His Majesty Louis XVI and His Queen Marie-Antoinette.

Somehow, all four at the same time.

Rumors circled, in the streets of Paris, that when the National Assembly notified him of his commission, a slightly green Lafayette had smiled grimly and said, "I thank you, gentlemen, for the compliment. You must think me a kind of miracle worker."

Shortly thereafter, it was said, the august members of the National Assembly could hear Lafayette vomiting from the privy chamber.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> About a month late for Bastille Day, but hey, being on time has never been one of my virtues.
> 
> Drop a kudo or a comment if you like—they fill my soul with joy!
> 
> (As does Camille Desmoulins, that lil idiot. I love him.)


	16. Burned

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 16, in which I release all my pent-up rage at Hamilton and Washington for being trash during Cabinet Battle 2. #LafayetteDeservedBetter2KAlways

_28 August 1789_

_The Marquis de Lafayette to Alexander Hamilton_

Alexander,

I confess, it feels strange to be writing in English again. Seven years I lived in your country, bastardizing your language left and right. Apparently, all it takes is four months back in France, and I've lost whatever eloquence I ever possessed.

Peggy is, of course, an enormous help. At present, she's reading a newspaper on the other side of the parlor, humoring me as I interrupt her to ask for an English word I can't remember. (Six times, so far. Not that I keep count.) Between the two of us, I'm confident I'll eventually arrive at what I'm trying to say.

I wish I were only writing with pleasantries. Questions about you, your career, your dear Eliza, your children. (My nieces and nephews, too, in a sense. God, but the world is a mad place.) But I am a poor sort of friend indeed, Alexander. I write, instead, to beg your help.

I know you've heard of the current situation between my king and my country. The National Assembly has taken control of the daily business of governing. It pressures the king to ratify a constitution—which, of course, Louis will never do. I fear the nobles and the people can never arrive at a solution when all three are forever at one another's throats. A cannibalistic Cerberus, where every bite and scratch soothes one head's need for revenge but kills the body by inches.

Peggy is regarding me now with a look of deep suspicion, no doubt wondering why I should need the word "cannibalistic" or "Cerberus." Perhaps my metaphor runs away with me.

I shall, then, come to the point.

I am afraid, Alexander. For myself secondarily, for my country foremost. The king is weak-willed and will be led by whichever faction emerges strongest. But I don't know which faction that will be. The queen? Monsieur Danton and his band of murderous militants from the Rue des Cordeliers? I cannot say.

My friends in the city whisper that war with Europe is inevitable. I believe them. We are too volatile, too unsteady, to sustain peace. France is not united against an enemy across the Atlantic, as we were in '76. Today in France, we fight ourselves. Chaos reigns, and I fear our ill-planned boldness will turn the whole of Europe against us.

Alexander, I must ask. As a fellow soldier. A friend.

A brother.

Send help. Anything America can spare—troops, supplies, funds—we will repay. It would be rude of me indeed to remind you that we have already paid our half of that bargain, back in '76, but we will repay it again, and twenty times over. Speak to President Washington and the Cabinet. Inform them of our situation.

France is America's strongest ally. I hope we have proven that. And when we are able, we will prove it again.

Please, Alexander. I wouldn't ask if I didn't need it.

Reply in haste.

Yours always,

— Lafayette

 

* * *

 

Eliza poked her head into Alexander's study, rapping her knuckles twice on the doorframe. Alexander flinched as though she'd screamed in his ear. He pushed back his chair from the desk, where he'd been reading the day's letters. His face seemed strained, his eyes distracted. He ran his hand backward through his hair and gave his wife a small, forced smile.

"Alexander?" Eliza said warily.

"What is it?"

"Are you…are you all right?"

"Fine," he said. With his back to the desk, he slid the page he'd been reading beneath a large leather-bound book. Had Eliza not been paying careful attention, she wouldn't have noticed the gesture.

But she did notice.

"What was that?" she said.

He drew back half a step, leaning would-be-casually against the desk. "Nothing. A letter from Madison. Just politics. Did you need something?"

Eliza paused. She'd been married to Alexander for years. She knew what it felt like to be lied to. But she also knew that it wasn't worth pressing the point. She could fight him all day, but she'd make no headway, and frankly was not in the mood to bang her head against the wall. If he were writing letters to loose women in Brooklyn, so be it, so long as he kept quiet in public. She smiled, in an attempt to reassure him.

"Philip's asking for you," she said. "He's got something he wants to show you."

"Eliza, I have so much work to do," Alexander said. "Can't it—"

"He's been asking for you all day, Alexander. Take ten minutes. You can afford ten minutes."

After a pause, Alexander sighed, then shrugged. "Let me finish this letter. I'll be down in a minute."

Once Eliza had left him alone again, Alexander slipped Lafayette's letter back out from beneath the book. He looked at it for a moment, seeing his friend's face in the curves and lines of the handwriting, hearing his voice, sensing his anxiety.

_What do you want me to do, my friend? Do you think I can afford to sacrifice my country?_

He balled the page up in one hand and tossed it to the side of the desk. It landed among a pile of identical pages, all cast aside in frustration during the morning's writing session. He hesitated another several seconds, before shaking his head to clear it of foolish sentiment.

_A man has to be his own friend, first._

Alexander left the study and closed the door silently behind him, before descending the stairs to rejoin his wife and son.

 

* * *

 

_17 October 1789_

_Peggy Schuyler to Alexander Hamilton_

Alexander,

I can only assume that the post between Paris and New York is unreliable, or that a capsized ship prevented my husband's last letter from reaching you. I can't imagine another reason why you wouldn't have replied at this point. I hope, certainly, that your long silence doesn't indicate that some misfortune has befallen you—although I imagine Eliza would keep me informed if that were the case.

Regardless.

You should know Lafayette doesn't wish me to write to you. He thinks you'll find it impolite, that we'll appear to be begging, that we'll sound desperate. Well, I'm willing to be impolite. I am begging. We are desperate.

Paris is falling to pieces. All began well enough—Lafayette and Jefferson's _Declaration on the Rights of Man and the Citizen_ was well received, and formed the basis for a more liberal constitution.

Guess how long the honeymoon period of this revolution lasted?

Precisely four days.

The fall of the Bastille was a symbolic horror. What we have now is something else altogether. Lafayette is the captain of the National Guard, charged to keep order in the city. _Order._ While men and women alike roam the streets with pikes, hurling death threats against both royalists and revolutionaries, depending on the day. To think anyone cares for _order_ , in a world like this.

My God, Alexander, I'm afraid for him. I don't know how much longer he can continue in this role and survive. The nobles hate him because he fought for America in '76, because he stood with the Assembly. They think him a traitor and a brigand. The people hate him for his title, and because he wouldn't execute the king with a blunt pike if they asked. Both sides hate organized religion as a threat to liberty, and Lafayette was named after six separate saints. He's both too radical and not radical enough, and hated on all sides.

I see the toll it's taking on him, though you can't. If the _sans-culottes_ or the aristocracy don't kill him, the stress will. And he's right to be anxious. There will be blood on these streets soon. The king's? The Assembly's? His? Mine? Who can say.

Alexander, listen to me. I write with my husband's interests in mind, though against his will. Speak up for France at the Cabinet. War with Austria and the Prussians is weeks away. Riots over the price of bread happen daily. We can't continue this way.

I'm not asking you, Alexander. I'm telling you. Do it. Or have the courage to reply to me and tell me why not.

— Peggy

 

* * *

 

_28 October 1789_

_Alexander Hamilton to Peggy Schuyler_

Peggy,

I'm sorry. I can't.

If we try to fight in every revolution in the world, it never stops. Where do we draw the line?

— Alexander

 

* * *

 

_23 June 1790_

_The Marquis de Lafayette to President George Washington_

President Washington, my general, and my dear friend,

Forgive my boldness in addressing you directly in this manner. As a private citizen, I know I have no right to claim your time. But I hope our former history will persuade you to indulge me.

General, I've addressed myself repeatedly to Secretary Hamilton, and received no reply. Frankly, my situation is desperate. As you know, I am the captain of the National Guard, charged to keep order in Paris. As well keep order in pandemonium.

Not long ago, I stood unarmed on the balcony of Versailles, my men surrounded, facing a mob of citizens storming the palace. A self-appointed army, armed to the teeth, hell-bent on destroying the house of Bourbon, from the paving stones to the neck of the king. Thanks be to God, I was able to leverage what little authority I retain to disperse the mob. But I can't rely on such a miracle a second time.

I don't know what to do.

My troops resent me. My king scarcely tolerates me. The queen despises me—would happily see me torn to pieces by the mob I risked my life to defend her from. The leaders of the revolution and the counter-revolution both consider me their prime enemy.

_I don't know what to do._

I need more men. I need help.

I wouldn't ask if I weren't in deadly need of aid. I wouldn't remind you of what my countrymen and I sacrificed for your revolution unless my country's future depended on that sacrifice being returned.

General, if I am too bold, forgive me. But I beg you, don't ignore my request. France is your first and greatest ally. If you would continue to rely on her as such, she must survive. She may not, without you.

I may not, without you.

I remain, General, your former officer and—as I hope—friend,

— Lafayette

 

* * *

 

Washington set down the letter on his desk. The room was quiet, dimly lit by an oil lamp on its last gasps. A thick June heat curled in through the window, making his movements slow, lethargic.

That was why he couldn't think, he told himself. That was why he didn't know what to do.

The heat. That was all.

Night sprawled across the grounds outside his window and spread shadows throughout his study. Through the dimness, it was easier to see by the silvery light of memory, to call up scenes he would have greatly preferred to forget.

But the memories didn't care what he preferred.

The earnest, well-dressed teenager who had appeared at Washington's Manhattan outpost, speaking broken English, requesting a commission.

The boy, better-spoken at twenty but no less earnest, being thrown from his horse at the Battle of Brandywine. Face drawn and ashen, bleeding hard from a bullet to the leg. How the boy bound his own wound with his officer's sash and roared for the retreating troops to return and fight, staving off their panic, saving hundreds of lives. How he screamed, later, when the bullet was cut out with a pocketknife, the wound cleaned with whiskey and cauterized with a bayonet heated in the fire.

The shivering, gaunt young man at Valley Forge, and the fleet of ships he and his soon-to-be wife had secured.

The man, standing in Trinity Church, smiling like a fool, as the whip-smart young woman with the lively eyes agreed to marry him.

Lafayette. Like a son to him. As close to a son as he would ever have, his and Martha's ages being what they were.

But this revolution. No, this riot. This hydra of a conflict, that would suck in American lives by the score. It couldn't happen.

Lafayette understood politics better than most members of Washington's cabinet. He had to have known that this was an option. That this was Washington's only option.

"I'm sorry, my boy," Washington said aloud to the empty room. "We're too fragile to start another fight."

Slowly, he fed the edge of the letter into the oil lamp, and watched in silence as the page caught and writhed into black ashes.

He should have written back. Explained his reasons, his reservations, his continued affections for Lafayette despite the circumstances. It surprised him, how much of a coward he now felt, that he couldn't bring himself to do it.

 

* * *

 

_4 January 1791_

_The Marquis de Lafayette to Thomas Jefferson_

Thomas,

Please deal straightly with me. I've written to Secretary Hamilton four times now, President Washington three. I can gain no reply. As a man who nearly gave his life for your country on countless occasions, I would have thought I deserved better treatment than this. And from Hamilton and Washington, no less. My brother, and a man who professed to care for me as a father might. Evidently I have been misled.

Forgive me. In my frustration, I grow sentimental. There is no time for sentiment during a revolution.

Since the abject disaster that was the massacre at the Champs de Mars, I've been relegated to a military post on the eastern border, near where the Austrian troops are encamped. (I swear by all the saints, Thomas, France is now at war with nearly every country in Europe.)

I've never been opposed to military service. And in any case, it's likely in my best interest to put some miles between myself and Paris, given that the city is run by men who would very much like to shorten me by a head. Nevertheless, I confess I mistrust my commission. I am of the opinion that Danton, Desmoulins, and that demagogue Marat have sent me to the front so that when they have me assassinated, they can make it look like an accident of war.

I realize this sounds fanciful on paper. But were you here, Thomas, you'd know exactly how little imagination I use to arrive at this conclusion. The revolutionaries are an imaginative lot, conjuring up enemies and conspiracies where there are none, but I consider myself more of a realist.

Forgive my tone, my friend. It may sound as though I don't take my situation seriously. Nothing, I promise, could be further from the truth. I don't know another way to cope with the collective madness that is France, other than to laugh. Like a dying man laughs at the skulls of those who came before him. I laugh, and I write letters that my former friends will not answer.

I wonder if my command of the English language is not as strong as I had thought. Perhaps the words "friend," "brother," and "ally" mean something different in your language than in mine.

Reply, Thomas. At this juncture, I frankly couldn't care less what you say. But a reply. You owe me at least that much.

Yours,

— Lafayette

 

* * *

 

Jefferson leaned forward, resting both hands on Washington's desk. The former ambassador was a tall man, but not necessarily an intimidating one, built primarily of limbs and angles. Nevertheless, in his current desperation, there was something frightening about him. Washington drew imperceptibly back.

"Mr. President," Jefferson began again, "will we not stand with our friends as they fight against tyranny? Who gave us money and guns and supplies when our own revolution seemed to fail? France. Who do we owe our allegiance? France. Who—"

Washington raised his hand. Jefferson fell silent mid-sentence. The president's face was drawn, his bearing weary. When he spoke, his words seemed to come from a great distance. "Enough, Thomas."

Jefferson stared, as stunned as if Washington had slapped him. "Sir," he began. "Do we not fight for freedom?"

"Our own freedom, first. At any cost."

"Sir—"

"The subject is closed, Thomas."

"But—"

" _Closed._ "

Jefferson opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again. In the back of his mind, Lafayette's letter still rang through his brain.

_Perhaps the word "friend" means something different in your language than in mine._

"You kill him, then," Jefferson said.

He turned on his heel before Washington could deny him another time, and slammed the door behind him.

 

* * *

 

_4 February 1791_

_Thomas Jefferson to the Marquis de Lafayette_

I'm sorry, my friend. I tried.

— Thomas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who's dropped a kudo or a comment—your feedback fills my soul! 
> 
> Next chapter Peggy get to hang out with Robespierre and the Revolutionary Murder-Boys, which brings joy at least to my nerdy heart.


	17. Public Safety

Catherine rushed down the stairs after her mistress. "Madame, are you sure—"

But Peggy seemed quite sure. She snatched up her coat from where it slumped over the back of a chair and shot one arm through it. "I'm going to the Palais de Justice," she said. "If I'm not back in two hours, you have my permission to call the police."

Catherine, despite the urgency of the subject, paused. "Aren't you _going_ to the police?"

Peggy swore. The inconvenient truth of revolution: what constituted law and order was notoriously difficult to pin down.

"Call someone, then," she said, and opened the door.

"Madame, wait—"

_Slam._

Peggy bounded down the townhouse's front steps and spilled into the Rue de Rivoli, shoulders squared, head up. It would have been safer, probably, to wait for an escort. Even Catherine would have sufficed, silly as she was. The streets of Paris weren't safe to traverse alone, if the grisly murder of the Princesse de Lamballe was any indication. Any street whose cobblestones had so recently run with blood should have been walked with some degree of caution. However, Peggy was in no mood to be careful. If she could have snatched up a pike from a nearby citizen and stormed the Palais de Justice herself, she would have done it.

As the matter stood, she had to settle for striding down its marble halls and looming over the desk of the secretary barring her entry to the office. It wasn't quite the same, but it was better than nothing.

The beady-eyed secretary had, evidently, not expected anyone to turn up this afternoon. He shuffled his papers loudly, then, with an officious little sniff, turned to Peggy.

"And who might you be, citizeness?" he asked, with a voice like a half-strung viola.

Peggy wrinkled her nose, irked. "The Marquise de Lafayette," she said, wielding the aristocratic title like a weapon. "Here to speak with Monsieur Robespierre."

The secretary sniffed again. Peggy wondered whether the man had been taking snuff just before she arrived. She couldn't blame him—had she been forced to work for Robespierre, she'd have done the same. Anything to get through the day.

"I regret to inform you that Citizen Robespierre is indisposed," he said.

"Then you'd better tell him to dispose himself, hadn't you?" Peggy shot back.

She and the secretary squared off across the desk, neither of them speaking. The secretary might disappoint people for a living, but it would take more than a sniffling bureaucrat to turn Peggy away.

Finally, when it became clear she'd stay where she was until the opening of the seventh seal if she had to, the secretary groaned. He straightened his spectacles—rather aggressively in Peggy's opinion—before making a sharp gesture indicating that she should follow him.

"If he eats you alive, I shan't be held responsible," he warned her, pausing in front of the door.

Peggy graced him with an icy smile. "I'd never dream of holding you responsible. Now, if you please. I think I can make my way from here."

With that, she pushed past the secretary and entered the office of Maximilien de Robespierre, Chief Member of the Committee of Public Safety and de facto leader of the revolution.

Peggy wasn't sure what she'd expected from Robespierre's office. Certainly not this: bare walls, Spartan décor, piles upon piles of books and papers and balance sheets stacked on every level surface. It was midday, but the curtains had been pulled over the window, as though direct exposure to sunlight could damage the owner of the office. It looked more like a monk's cell than the office of a high-ranking public official. Peggy half-expected a sackcloth-frocked friar to leap out of the closet, murmuring the Pater Noster. But of course, religion had been essentially outlawed with the birth of the French Constitution, and Peggy had more important things to think about.

Because this might be Robespierre's office, but he wasn't the only man in it.

Peggy felt her hackles rise at the sight of George-Jacques Danton leaning backward against Robespierre's desk, resting both hands against the wood. Danton had evidently been in the middle of a sentence—his expression was that of a man who had several brilliant points left to make, and who was rather disappointed at the prospect of not making them. He glanced toward the door with narrowed eyes, nodding at Peggy in recognition if not welcome.

Seated in an armchair opposite, legs curled up lotus-style underneath him, perched a small, slim man Peggy recognized on sight. A liberal spirit might have called Camille Desmoulins handsome. "Visually interesting" might have been more honest, but in the same room as Danton even the plainest men took on shades of beauty. Without the bull-like foil of his friend to set him off, Camille would have looked like a wild boy trailing a circus caravan, or a clever street urchin in some dreadful five-sous novel. The way he glanced from Danton to Peggy put her immediately in mind of a small dog in a frock coat, earnestly hoping for a pat on the head from anyone within arm's reach.

And there, leaning against the window with his arms folded across his worn-out coat, stood the man himself, Maximilien de Robespierre. If Danton was a boulder and Camille a puppy, Robespierre was a piece of stretched-thin lace, consumptive and transparent. Resplendent in his austerity, his posture was languid, yet puritanical. His presence seemed like an apology for the amount of space Danton took up.

Except for his eyes. As they flicked away from Danton and locked on Peggy, Robespierre's eyes made no apologies for anything.

"Good afternoon, citizeness," he said, in a voice like hummingbirds' wings. He did not move away from the window. His prim drawing-room accent made the supposedly equalizing form of address feel like an insult.

"Good afternoon," Peggy said. "I expected your secretary to announce me."

"After the revolution, we have no need for titles and introductions," Robespierre said with an easy shrug. "We are all brothers and sisters. You can introduce yourself to me."

"You're Lafayette's wife," Camille said, looking at Peggy with his large, waif-like eyes. "The American heiress."

Robespierre glared at Camille, resenting the ruined staging of his little _liberté egalité fraternité_ demonstration. Peggy would have smiled, if this had been the kind of company it was acceptable to smile in.

"I am," she said. "Though heiress is pushing it a bit. A pleasure to meet you in person, Monsieur Robespierre. And you, Monsieur Desmoulins."

"Not a pleasure to meet Monsieur Danton, I take it?" Robespierre remarked.

"That's a pleasure I've already had," Peggy said. Danton tipped his head ironically.

"Please," Robespierre said, gesturing with one fragile hand at the chair beside Camille, "sit. Danton, Camille, and I had business to attend to, but we are never too busy to address the concerns of our fellow citizens."

"I'd rather stand." Peggy had an ill-defined feeling that sitting down in front of this ice prince and his cohorts would be acknowledging defeat.

Robespierre shrugged. "As you like."

"While you're here," Danton said, leaning further against the desk, "I haven't heard from your husband in some time. Has he written to you lately?"

"Last week," she said shortly.

"And how is the old marquis?" Camille asked. "Getting on royally at the border?"

Peggy couldn't even be surprised. That was Camille all over—far more bombast than subtlety. At least no one could ever accuse him of wasting an adverb.

"He's been better," she said.

Robespierre had the nerve to look sorrowful. He stepped away from the window. Danton took the vacant chair at the center of the room as Robespierre sat behind the desk, leaning the elbows of his threadbare coat against the tabletop and steepling his fingers. Camille continued watching Robespierre with his dark, owl-like eyes. Peggy had to bite back the urge to run.

"Doubtless," Robespierre said. "His is not an easy task. I wish your husband a swift and safe return, citizeness."

"No, you don't," Peggy said. "You want my husband to die at the front so you can use his skull for a paperweight. Don't lie to me. I didn't come to be lied to."

Clearly it would take more than the chill in Peggy's words to make the Chief Member of the Committee of Public Safety and his two friends flinch. Camille glanced lightly at Danton, who returned the look with a smile. Robespierre merely examined his fingernails.

"Very well, then," Camille said. "Why don't you tell us why you came?"

"Much as I love guessing games, my dear," Danton added, "running a revolution doesn't leave us an overabundance of free time."

Peggy took a deep breath, both for courage and to let a lungful of anger escape before it got the better of her. She couldn't afford to fly off the handle, not now. Spewing every noun, verb, and conjunction that came to mind might be all well and good for Alexander, in a country where the worst the opposition could do was remove you from office. With these men, she'd have to tread very carefully.

Fortunately, she wasn't Philip Schuyler's daughter for nothing. She leveled a stare at Robespierre, ignoring the other two.

"I came to ask you in person, Monsieur Robespierre, why you've called for the arrest of my husband."

Robespierre, slowly, brought his steepled fingertips down to the surface of the desk. His snowflake smile had melted slightly at the edges. "My dear, we are men of honor and justice. I promise you, we do not arrest anyone without exceedingly good reason."

"I never doubted that." Peggy's tone matched his for irony. "You can understand, though, that I'd appreciate hearing what those reasons are."

"Your husband is a sworn royalist and a threat to this nation's survival," Camille began indignantly.

Peggy didn't even look at him. "Quiet now, Camille," she said, eyes still on Robespierre. "The grown-ups are talking."

She didn't know which reaction made her feel more uncomfortable, Camille's scowl or Danton's chuckle. But Robespierre merely sighed and massaged the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, as if he nursed a headache.

"Unfortunately, citizeness, Camille is right. After the way your husband defended the king after the treasonous Flight of Varennes, not to mention the horrendous massacre at the Champs de Mars, your husband's credit with the revolution is regrettably not as sterling as once it was."

"He's been a leader of this revolution since the beginning," Peggy protested. "Yes, he wants peace in Paris. Is that a sin?"

"Nothing is a sin in the new France," Danton reminded her, a wry smile tugging at his broad lips. "There is no good or evil, only revolutionary and counter-revolutionary."

"Danton, don't be vulgar," Robespierre snapped. Wearily, he turned back to Peggy with a faint smile. "I grant that your husband was valorous once. But we cannot pardon present treasons because of past behavior. Should we forgive Judas because once he gave money to widows and orphans?"

Peggy smiled grimly. "That seems like an inexact example, Monsieur. If, as you say, there's no sin left in France."

Camille stood up from his chair—Robespierre gave him a severe look, but Camille ignored him and glowered at Peggy. They were within an inch of one another's heights. She watched him with an outward air of calm in marked contrast to his thinly veiled rage, though inside her heart beat hard against her chest.

"You have some nerve, coming here and speaking this way, when your husband is the very kind of traitor we're working to defend this country against," Camille snapped. "If I had my way, _citizeness_ , I'd take back the marquis' military commission and give him a warm cell in Châtelet, like he deserves."

Peggy knew it was a bad idea. Really and truly she did. But bad ideas could be so deeply satisfying.

She whipped her hand back and slapped Camille Desmoulins across the face as hard as she could.

The  _crack_ echoed through the silent room _._ Camille stood, staring, as if stunned. Danton watched Peggy as if she might pull a knife from the pocket of her coat and stab them all through the heart. Even Robespierre dropped his usual façade of disinterest and looked at Peggy in wry surprise. Peggy, for her part, felt a rush of energy stronger than anything she'd felt since running the British blockade with Rochambeau.

"If you lift one finger against my husband," she said, "I promise I'll make you live to regret it. I am both a Schuyler and a Lafayette. Two families that don't go down without a fight. Keep that in mind, gentlemen."

Silence continued for another long moment, before Robespierre smiled.

"I will think on it continually, citizeness."

"See you do," Peggy said, and stalked out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

The secretary tried to interject as she swept down the hall, through the door, and out into the street, but she wasn't in the mood to listen.

_That was stupid. You know that was stupid. All you've done is made them angrier._

True, of course, but she didn't care. Someone had to tell the new despots of the revolution that while they'd given themselves power over a country, no one had given them power over Peggy. She almost wished they _would_ try to arrest Lafayette, if only for the opportunity to give them a real piece of her mind.

That is, until she reached the front door, stepped into the front hall of her house, and heard voices from the dining room.

"But, Monsieur, the Convention—"

"Yes, I know, Catherine, but that's tomorrow, not today. Let me be at home for a few hours before I have to think about addressing the Convention. When will she be back?"

Peggy froze. Her coat fell from nerveless fingers to the wooden floor of the entry hall. Surely she was hearing things. Surely the stress of her meeting at the Palais de Justice was causing her to hear voices that weren't there. Surely he would not be so stupid.

But when she stepped into the dining room, she saw Catherine seated across the table from the tall, dark-haired man in a military uniform bearing the four stars of a lieutenant general. And then she knew.

He _would_ be that stupid.

"Lafayette," she whispered.

He turned immediately at the sound of her voice, rising instinctively from the chair. She wanted to be angry with him—given another thirty seconds, would probably be angry with him—but in that moment she couldn't keep anger and her relief straight in her head. Unable to say anything else, she rushed forward and embraced him, feeling his strong arms hold her close, the gentle rhythm of his breath against her body. He was alive. He was safe, and he was free.

Worse for the wear, of course—Lafayette had an unfortunate tendency of getting command of armies that were underfunded and understaffed. His uniform was coated with dust from the road, his boots were worn almost out of use, and there were a few premature strands of gray shooting through his hair that Peggy did not remember seeing when he'd left for the front. But as he cupped one callused palm against her cheek and looked at her with eyes that ached with longing, he seemed again the wild, enthusiastic boy she'd fallen in love with in Albany. Still himself. Still hers.

"You don't know how many times I've dreamed of holding you again," he said softly, and kissed her until the feeling left her arms and legs and she felt herself floating above her own body. Too perfect, too much of exactly what she wanted, to leave her any breath to be angry with him.

"How did you get here?" she asked—noticing that Catherine, tactful for perhaps the first time in her life, had quietly taken her leave. "How did you get into Paris without anyone noticing?"

Lafayette grinned, his smile still brilliant in his drawn face. "I have my ways. I told you how I snuck away from my uncle to come to America, back in '77? I disguised myself as a messenger and rode all through the night to Spain."

She had heard the story at least twenty times, of course, but would happily have heard it twenty more if it meant another chance to hear her husband's voice.

"How long have you been back?"

"Twenty minutes," he said, with a shrug. "Catherine told me you left for the Palais de Justice. I was sure she was mistaken…"

The name of the building called the faces of the three masterminds of the revolution back into Peggy's memory. She shivered, despite the summer heat. It didn't matter what she wanted. It didn't matter that she'd have given everything she had to keep Lafayette at her side every minute of every day.

Nothing mattered more than keeping him safe.

And the only way he could be safe was to not be here.

"You have to leave," she said, though she didn't let go of his hands.

He stared. "What?"

"You heard me. It's not safe for you here."

Either Lafayette didn't understand, or he was deliberately refusing to. He pulled her hands to his waist, before encircling her own with his arms. "Not safe? I'm safer here than anywhere. I have to speak to the Convention tomorrow, but after that…Peggy, didn't you miss me?"

"Of course I missed you," she said. "But please, my God, don't go to the Convention tomorrow."

Some of her urgency had at last connected with Lafayette's brain. He frowned, looking at her seriously now. "Did you…Peggy, did you hear something?"

"Plenty," she replied. "In fact, I've just come from slapping Camille Desmoulins across the face because of what I've heard."

He grinned. "Did you? God pardon me, but you _are_ perfect."

"Lafayette, be serious. I spoke with Robespierre, Camille, and Danton."

"Alone? But—"

"I know. But listen to me. They want you arrested. They want you _killed._ "

An audible blink sounded through the room. Lafayette had ridden too far on too little sleep to make sense of a sentence like that. He sat down heavily in the dining-room chair, looking at her in disbelief.

"They…Peggy, don't be absurd. They can't kill me. I command their army. I—"

"Do you think that matters?" She didn't care about frightening him now. She didn't care if her words cut deep. For God's sake, why wouldn't he _see_? "They'd kill the king tomorrow. They'd kill each other if it would help them, do you think they won't kill you?"

Lafayette slowly ran one hand backward through his hair. She could see reality dawn on him inch by inch. The last remnants of his confidence, siphoning away. She'd have wept, if there had been any use.

"You need to go," she said again, sitting next to him, one hand on his knee. "The provinces. Belgium. America. I don't know where. But every second you stay in Paris, you're in danger."

"Peggy, I won't leave you behind," he said.

"I'm not asking you to. Not forever. Find somewhere safe, then send for me. Catherine and I will follow. I'll find a soldier to travel with us, for the road. Rochambeau, maybe. He could stand to get out of town." She smiled, more for Lafayette's benefit than for her own. "We can finally be together, without the war. We could…we could start a family," she finished, surprising herself with the words.

Surprised still more by the pained expression that flickered across Lafayette's face.

"Is now the right time to talk about that?" he asked.

He was right.

"No," she replied. "Probably not. When we're both safe. Then we'll talk. But please, love, promise me. Promise me you'll go."

The idea galled him, she could tell. The idea of running away. Even though it was good sense and not cowardice, he harbored too much of a revolutionary spirit to enjoy giving up without a fight. But given the choice between an honorable husband and a living one, Peggy would choose the latter every time.

Finally, he sighed and squeezed her hand. "All right," he said. "I'll go. But tomorrow. I'll stay tonight."

She smiled, in genuine relief. "Good. I could use tonight."

 

* * *

 

They fell asleep next to each other, Peggy nestled in the warm, thin comma of Lafayette's body.

When she awoke, the other side of the bed was cold, and his coat and boots were missing from the front hall. Later, when she spoke to the stableboy, he said he'd seen the tall marquis riding east, toward the border, half an hour before sunrise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was thisclose to spinning off a Robespierre/Desmoulins subplot in this chapter, but just barely restrained myself. In other words, you're welcome.


	18. The Mousetrap

_The Franco-Swiss Border_

It was a few minutes before sunrise, but the brush of color across the horizon signaled that it wouldn't be long now. Unlike Paris, unlike the wooded lowlands of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, here a man could see the day the moment it started. A line of woods rose a ten minutes' ride from where Lafayette stood, huddled in his greatcoat, making for the border where he'd left his troops garrisoned two weeks before. He'd left his horse behind at the last inn on the road—the journey was dismal on foot, but it increased his odds of passing unnoticed.

He'd left his troops in the charge of Lieutenant Lefèvre, a likely young fellow with both enthusiasm and military acumen in spades. Of course, it was more than likely that Lefèvre's enthusiasm had eroded completely in the two months he'd had sole command.

Enthusiasm, in wartime, was a highly perishable commodity.

Lafayette wasn't so old himself, either, really. Old, maybe, in the context of his family, but that really wasn't much to go by. The Lafayette family had an unnerving pattern of rearing sons who died in battle before the age of thirty.

It occurred to Lafayette, as he made his way back toward camp, that he'd now lived longer than his own father. Not that he remembered the man much. The elder marquis had been killed in a skirmish in the Seven Years' War when Lafayette was not yet two. But it was destabilizing, somehow, to think that if father and son were to meet again in heaven, Lafayette would meet a father who was seven years his junior.

But no, now wasn't the time for that. He could not afford to be maudlin, not now. When he was safely out of France, then he could be as self-indulgent as he liked. For now, he had a job to do. He would issue his command to the army, see his affairs were in order—even with the threat of arrest and possible death hanging over his neck, he couldn't bring himself to wholly abandon his post. And then, when the men were asleep that night, he would vanish across the border into Switzerland, like mist blown away by morning.

It turned his stomach, running away. As a boy, he never would have done it. Would have charged with his sword held high where the fighting was thickest, and to deep hell with the consequences. But he wasn't a boy any longer. He couldn't afford the risk he'd run at Monmouth. The kind of risk that had caused General Washington to glance at Horatio Gates, both mistakenly thinking Lafayette out of earshot, and remark, "Good God, do you think the marquis wants to get shot?"

But now he had someone else depending on him to stay alive.

Lafayette stopped walking, very suddenly.

He heard the snap of a twig from behind him, and turned.

He wanted to run, but when he found himself facing twelve men on horseback, he knew instantly he wouldn't get far.

Fear would have been a natural response. No one would have faulted him for fear. But somehow, as the platoon of armed soldiers descended on him, a deathly sense of calm settled into Lafayette's brain. His heart rate didn't change, his shoulders didn't tense.

A line from _Hamlet,_ borne on a perplexing current of memory, drifted into his brain. _"If it be now, 'tis not to come. If it be not to come, it will be now. The readiness is all."_

He'd known, deep down, it would be now. He'd always been ready for this.

The leader of the soldiers, an officer dressed in the brilliant green of an Austrian general, dismounted and turned his sword on Lafayette's chest. "Well," he sneered, his Austrian accent dragging out the syllable. "What have we here? A rat?"

"Perhaps," Lafayette said coolly. "But I hate to think what kind of vermin that would make you."

Lafayette couldn't pretend to know where his bravado had come from. Surely nowhere rational, as the general gave a cold laugh and pressed the point of his sword harder against Lafayette's chest, driving him back a step.

"You're a bold one, aren't you, Monsieur le Marquis de Lafayette."

The general jerked his head to the side in a wordless signal. Three more soldiers dismounted, advancing on Lafayette.

Lafayette's hand began to reach for his pistol—not that it would do much good. There was no earthly way he could fight off twelve men single-handedly. But before he could even begin the futile attempt, one of the soldiers grabbed him by the wrist, twisting his arm behind his back.

A reckless, superhuman strength surged through Lafayette. He broke free of the soldier's hold, kicked out to sweep the legs from beneath another, his elbow sliced back toward the man who had grasped at him from behind. He heard the crunch of bone and a man's cry, saw the second man fall, whirled to face the third, hand scrambling for his knife.

Too late.

A fourth man caught him with an arm around the throat. The cool thread of a knife's edge pressed hard against his neck. The cutting edge nicked the skin; Lafayette could feel a thin trail of blood trickling down to his collarbone.

Only then, and not a moment before, did he begin to panic.

The general chuckled, shaking his head. "They told us you were a brave man, Monsieur le Marquis. They also said you were an idiot. It seems they were right on both counts. Bind his hands," he added to the soldier whose nose Lafayette had likely broken.

The man wrenched Lafayette's arms behind his back, securing his hands with a short length of rope. Tight enough that Lafayette winced—a knot this tight had to be revenge for the blood streaming from the man's nose. He felt another soldier's hands unclasping the sword from his waist, taking and unloading his pistol, even finding the knife stowed in his boot.

Without weapons, he felt naked. Without his hands, he felt inhuman. The knife still pressed against his throat.

"What good do you think I'll do you as a prisoner?" Lafayette asked. "What do you want with me?"

The general smiled. "With the infamous General Lafayette, France's dashing revolutionary-in-chief? What do you think?"

Lafayette gave a grim laugh. "If you believe that's how France thinks of me," he said, "I have some deeply disappointing news."

"I'd be very careful what you say from here on out," the general said. "I told my king we'd take you alive. But one slip of the wrist, and, well…"

The knife against Lafayette's throat wavered; his breath caught.

"Accidents happen, during wartime."

Lafayette barely noticed when two soldiers took him by the arms and marched him forward, as the rest of the soldiers remounted. He didn't know where they were taking him, and had no energy left for speculation. The only thought consuming him was the urgency in Peggy's eyes, and the echo of her voice, louder than the sound of horses and moving soldiers around him.

" _When we're both safe. Then we'll talk. But please, love, promise me. Promise me you'll go."_

He wondered, as he was marched away, whether there were anywhere on Earth he would be safe.

Whether he would ever see her again.

 

* * *

 

_Paris_

"Have you seen this?" Camille asked. He brandished the letter with a languid gesture, the paper flashing like a meteor through the dimly lit office.

The sun had nearly set outside the Palais de Justice, but none of the three men inside had moved to light the lamps. Danton and Robespierre worked at the same desk, seated side-by-side and reviewing a half-completed decree against royalists from Marseille. Proportionally, Danton took up nearly two-thirds of the space. He looked like an amoeba preparing to swallow Robespierre whole.

Danton did not raise his eyes from the page. "How the devil could we have seen it, Camille, you got it thirty seconds ago."

Camille scowled, but didn't push the point. He had slung himself sideways across the chair in front of the desk, his legs dangling over the right arm. He gestured with the letter again. "It's from General Metz," he said, by way of explanation.

At this, Danton finally set down his pen and looked up.

Robespierre rose from the desk, clasping his hands thoughtfully behind his back. "The Austrian general?"

Camille snorted. "Do you know another General Metz?"

"What did he say?" Danton asked.

Camille shrugged, clearly relishing the feeling of having an audience. "It seems they've taken a rather interesting prisoner at the front. Wants to know if we'd be interested in ransoming him off."

"We would not be interested," Robespierre said coolly. "Who have they got?"

"Why, your dearly beloved old friend, Max," Camille said—Robespierre's lips tightened at the familiar nickname. "His Royalist Excellency himself, the marquis."

Robespierre's eyebrows lifted gently toward his hairline, like a ballerina stretching en pointe. "De Lafayette?" he asked.

Camille rolled his eyes. "No, de Sade. Of course Lafayette."

Robespierre hummed and paced toward the window, where the last glimpses of the setting sun had just vanished behind the rooftops of Paris. "What was the idiot doing by the front?" he mused aloud. "He should have known. Where was he going?"

Danton grinned. "If I give a damn, hang me from the nearest lamppost," he said, clapping his gargantuan hands together. "That's one less thing to worry about. He'll have a hard time invading Paris while he's locked up in an Austrian cell. Do you think they'll kill him, Camille?"

"Oh, I don't think so," Camille said, as though they were discussing the weather. "The Austrians are fond of their nobility. I imagine they'll keep him as long as they think they can get some use out of him."

"Word of this will get around, of course," Robespierre said thoughtfully. "But for the time being, I would advise against telling his wife."

Danton laughed. "What, you think the marquise will knife you through the heart in your bath?"

Robespierre's lips narrowed still further. "Believe me, Danton. I would not rule anything out."

 

* * *

_Philadelphia_

George Washington was not in the mood to be interrupted. It had been another one of those days when he woke up before dawn and lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering if perhaps his country had been better off under British rule. Not that he regretted the revolution, when he thought about it honestly. But on days like this, when his Cabinet was forever sniping at one another over tiny nuisances like a whiskey tax or how many banks the country should have, he couldn't help but remember how easy it had been, when running a country had been Parliament's problem.

At least then, there had always been someone to blame.

So when Secretary Jefferson knocked on his office door and entered without waiting for a response, Washington was not particularly disposed toward listening. He could think of an infinite number of things he'd rather do than listen to another thirty-minute rant from his Secretary of State about the ineffectiveness and insubordination of his Secretary of the Treasury.

Like saw off his own leg, for instance.

Washington made a valiant effort to appear as if the papers spread in front of him were of the utmost national importance. In reality, they were the plans for an upcoming renovation of Mount Vernon, but he could think of no reason for Jefferson to know that.

"I'm sorry, Secretary, but this is not a good time," Washington said, not looking up. "Please make an appointment, and I would be happy to speak with you at a later—"

Washington flinched back as Jefferson's hand cracked down against the desk.

He stared, wordlessly, at the Secretary of State, who now had his full attention.

Jefferson's usual Southern languor had disappeared. Fire sparked in his eyes now. If the desk hadn't separated him from Washington, the President would have been in fear for his own safety. And—now that his surprise had faded, he suddenly noticed it—beneath his hand, Jefferson had slapped a letter on the desk.

"I assume," Washington said, his gaze steely, "that this is addressed to me?"

"No," Jefferson said. "It was addressed to me. As the member of the American government most likely to care. But I thought you might like to read it."

Judging from the Secretary's tone, no, Washington would not like to read it. But there was no way out of this conversation other than the way Jefferson had provided. Warily, Washington took up the letter.

After reading the first line, he very nearly pushed the paper back, as if not reading it could deny the truth of the words.

> Secretary Jefferson,
> 
> I regret to inform you that my husband, the Marquis de Lafayette, has been taken prisoner by the Austrian Army, during his attempt to flee a hostile Parisian police force with the stated intent of taking his life. He is currently, to the best of my knowledge, being held in Olmütz, in central Austria. The Austrian government won't release the Marquis without certain concessions from the French government, concessions the French government is wholly uninterested in making.
> 
> In large part thanks to the inaction and ingratitude of your country, Secretary Jefferson, my husband may well be dead by the time you read this letter.
> 
> I don't hold you responsible. I know you did everything in your power to change the minds of your countrymen, and for that I'm grateful. But you might remind America's illustrious Secretary of the Treasury that I used to think I could rely on family for such support. More fool me, I suppose.
> 
> I won't ask your country to intervene. My past attempts have clearly shown that my best ally in these matters is myself. I simply thought it right that you should know.
> 
> Yours,
> 
> Peggy Schuyler du Motier, Marquise de Lafayette

Washington set down the letter, slowly. His hands, despite his best efforts, were shaking. Jefferson's anger clearly simmered less than an inch below the surface. It would take a good deal more than an emotional reaction to Peggy's letter to convince him to forgive the president. But it was a mark of the good nature underlying Jefferson's arrogance that he didn't tell Washington "I told you so."

"When did you receive this?" Washington asked.

"This morning."

"Good," Washington said. His voice sounded strained, as if it were coming from behind a closed door. "We have time, then. Who have you written to? The Austrian ambassador in Paris?"

Jefferson cocked a single eyebrow skyward. "Why, no one, sir," he remarked, turning to go. "I thought you made your policy of non-intervention in the French affair quite clear."

 

* * *

_Paris_

There was a limit to the tears one woman could cry.

There was a limit to the days she could spend in bed, in a cold bed built for twice as many people as it now contained, staring at the ceiling, waiting for it to collapse.

There was a limit to the ways one woman could come up with to painfully and slowly murder three governmental heads of state, barbaric jackals who celebrated the capture of a French citizen like a national holiday.

At a certain point, enough was enough.

Though the ache in her heart still pounded every time Peggy thought of Lafayette's face, heard his name, imagined the sound of his voice, she knew she couldn't sit still forever.

Something had to be done.

And she was the one to do it.

And so, that night, when Catherine had already gone to sleep and the rest of the house was silent, Peggy lit a single candle in her bedchamber, and walked silently to the wardrobe against the north wall of the master bedroom. The doors opened silently on their hinges, and she held the candle in one hand, examining the clothes hanging neatly in front of her with silent consideration. Moving fast, she slipped a satchel out of the wardrobe, packed it with only what was needed. An extra pair of clothes or two, a flask for water, the purse they kept hidden in the back of the wardrobe for emergencies.

Then she paused. She looked over at the small table next to the bed, with its three small drawers looking invitingly back.

If she was going to do this, she might as well do it right.

Before she could think better of it, Peggy crossed to the table, pulled open the top drawer, and took out the pistol Lafayette kept hidden there along with several cases of ammunition. She ran the pad of her thumb across the cool metal hammer, then nodded and tucked it into the pocket of her coat.

Peggy regarded herself in the mirror for a moment, sizing herself up. She wasn't intimidating. She wasn't even five foot six, not quite. And the streets of Paris weren't a safe place for anyone at the moment.

Well, all the more reason to move fast, she supposed.

The road to Austria wouldn't be easy, but some things were worth the risk.

Peggy reached once more into her pocket, feeling the cold weight of the pistol, and then blew out the candle. Her shoes made no sound against the wood as she descended the stairs.

The door shut behind her with a soft click.


	19. Close Every Door

_Seneca, New York_

The end of summer, Eliza thought, was the best time to visit the lake. When the Schuyler sisters were children, their father had always brought the family out of Albany to their upstate lake house the moment summer weather first arrived. At the beginning of June, the Finger Lakes were swarming with city-dwellers fleeing town for the season. There had been benefits to that, as children. Plenty of other children roaming the lakefront, the same families every year to swim with, climb trees with, run for their lives with after James McKinley smacked a hornet's nest with a stick just to see what would happen. But now that Eliza was older, with children of her own, the upstate quiet felt like a blessing, one she wouldn't have traded for anything.

Although, if she were being honest with herself, it was slightly too quiet.

Two voices in particular should have been there, and weren't.

With a sigh, Eliza pulled her skirt above her knees, letting her bare feet dangle off the dock into the mild water. The ripples beneath her toes sparkled outward, catching the glare of the setting sun. Angelica, noticing the shift in her sister's mood, leaned her head on Eliza's shoulder.

"You're thinking about her again, aren't you," Angelica asked.

Eliza sighed again. "Aren't you?"

"She loved the lake more than any of us," Angelica said, both answering and not answering the question. "Do you remember when I was ten and she was, what, six? When she built that raft with Frank Doyle and took it out to the center of the lake, pretending to be Blackbeard?"

Eliza laughed. "Peggy Schuyler, the most fearsome pirate in the Finger Lakes. Didn't they sink?"

"It was a raft built by two six-year-olds, of course they sank." Angelica grinned. "And Father shouted at her when she came home with her dress ruined, but she said—"

"'Papa, do you think I became the most fearsome pirate on the Spanish Main by worrying about my dress?'" Eliza finished. "My God, Peggy was a terror."

The weight of the word "terror" descended on both sisters at once. Angelica's grin lost its sparkle, and Eliza's eyes dipped back down to the water. For all either of them knew, Peggy might still be in Paris, trapped in her husband's house while he rotted in an Austrian prison cell. Or she might have escaped, though Eliza couldn't decide whether that was more or less terrifying than house arrest.

"Peggy can take care of herself," Angelica said. "Better than any of us. You know that."

"This isn't a sinking raft," Eliza said. "It's not something a contact with the Sons of Liberty can fix. This is a revolution gone to hell. She's only one person. She needs help."

"Have you…" Angelica began, then broke off.

Eliza fixed her with a curious look.

_If she can't finish that sentence without hesitating, I don't think I'm going to like what she has to say._

"Have I what?"

Angelica sighed, resigned. "Have you talked to Alexander about intervening through Congress?"

Eliza's expression could have frozen the lake solid in a heartbeat. "The honorable Secretary of the Treasury and I," she replied, "are not currently speaking to one another."

Wincing, Angelica sat up straight, resting her weight on her hands. She was taller than Eliza, and her feet were submerged in the lake, gently tracing a half-circle with her toe. Eliza's mind went immediately to drowning.

"Your husband couldn't take three days to spend with his family," Angelica said.

"Lafayette wrote to him, did you know?" Eliza's hands curled into fists as she spoke—fortunate, perhaps, that there was nothing within thirty yards for her to hit. "At least four times over the past year. Warned him about everything that was going to happen. Asked him for help. And you know what my husband did?"

Eliza did not answer her own question, but then, she didn't really need to.

"It's all for the best he didn't come," she finished. "I can't look at him anymore. I can't listen to the sound of his pen on the page. I can't listen to him arguing with himself until three in the morning, talking to the walls about national banks, when our sister and her husband might be dead."

Angelica snapped around to look at Eliza. "They're not dead," she said fiercely. "Don't say that. They're not."

_How can you possibly know?_

"Mama!"

Eliza closed her eyes, took a long breath, and looked over her shoulder. John and William, aged nine and seven respectively, were tearing down the hill from the house, both in a state of agitation. It only took Eliza a moment to see why—Will was holding most of a stuffed bear, but John was holding the head, stuffing spilling from the fraying neck. She spared a sideways glance at her sister, who grinned.

"Mother of eight is a full-time job, isn't it?" Angelica asked.

"I hope you didn't have anything planned this evening." Eliza stood, shaking the water from her feet and walking back toward the house. "It looks like I'll be performing emergency surgery on a bear."

 

* * *

 

_Olmütz, Austria_

Lafayette awoke, but did not open his eyes. There was no point. The longer he kept his eyes tight shut, the longer he could pretend to be somewhere else.

Anywhere else.

The hard stone against his aching back could have been his uncomfortable bunk on the Triton, bearing him from New York to Brest. The chill settling into his bones could have been the bitter cold of Valley Forge, surrounded by friends, a cause to fight for, a letter from Peggy beneath his pillow.

But the more awake he became, the less he could pretend. The fantasy showed threadbare, pathetic even.

He opened his eyes and sat up. Here in his tiny cell, deep underground in the dungeons of Olmütz, he had no way of telling time. The room was fully stone, smooth slate slabs that blended seamlessly from wall to floor to ceiling. No window, not even from a lamp.

The first day of Lafayette's imprisonment, he'd sat cross-legged in the center of a cell as black as the inside of his closed eyelids. He stared into the void, frantically praying for his vision to adjust. The darkness had been more frightening than the threat of the Austrians. Anything could have hidden in that impenetrable black. Gradually, his eyes adapted, pupils yawning wide to give him his current view. A bleak stone cell, no bed, no furniture, no sound, just a wooden bucket to piss in.

To be honest, not much of an improvement on the darkness.

Lafayette let out a breath and hugged his knees into his chest for warmth. The weather had taken a sharp turn since Lafayette came to Austria, the temperature in his cell plunging twenty degrees overnight. His captors had stripped him of his uniform after marching him into the prison. Apparently French soldiers weren't alone in needing decent clothing. By now Lafayette's coat and boots likely clothed a Viennese cavalryman.

They'd given him the basics: a white linen shirt and navy breeches that had clearly seen at least a decade of wear. (Lafayette didn't like to think about their previous owner, or what had likely happened to him.) Barefoot and jacketless, he felt his body tremble from cold. Had the light been better, he might have been able to see his breath.

At least it would've been something to look at.

Without light, without warmth, without a living soul except the rats he could hear skittering in the corner of his cell, time passed strangely. He was awake, but couldn't tell if it were noon or midnight, September or February, if he'd been locked underground for six days or twenty years.

So when he heard, at last, footsteps on the other side of his cell door, every nerve in his body hummed in response.

He rose to his feet. Too fast, he realized with a soft curse, as all the blood rushed rapidly to his head. He swayed before righting himself. Not that he expected he'd be able to fight them off, whoever they were. Not when he'd been living off scraps in a darkened cage for God knew how long. But if they were going to overpower him, the least he could do was to take it standing.

Keys clanged outside the door. The sound stabbed through Lafayette's ears, so accustomed to the silence. And then the door opened, admitting an Austrian guard holding a torch. It was like a comet directly in Lafayette's eyes. Light that once would have seemed dim now burned straight through him, leaving scorch marks on the back of his skull. He gave a yelp of pain and threw up a hand to shield his eyes.

The guard chuckled softly. "You're the rogue general of France?" he said in German. "I expected better."

Lafayette tried to speak, but it had been so long since he'd done it. Nothing came out, nothing but breath. But the guard wasn't interested in anything he had to say.

He stepped forward, taking hold of Lafayette by the front of his shirt.

"You're coming with me, monsieur," he said, his harsh accent making the French word sound profane. "General Metz wants a word. And don't try anything funny. You're not so important I wouldn't enjoy gutting you like a fish."

"Noted." Lafayette's voice sounded like an unoiled wheel, a rusty cart dragged across gravel.

The guard dragged Lafayette forward by the front of his shirt into the corridor. The cell door slammed shut behind them.

Lafayette's mind raced in a thousand directions. This was the first time he'd been let out of his cell since his imprisonment, the first time he'd seen full light. What had changed? Where were they taking him? His sense of direction had collapsed along with his sense of time—they could have been climbing up toward the sunlight, or descending deeper into the underbelly of Olmütz. And what would they do with him, wherever he was going? A transfer? Were they selling him off? Or had they decided that keeping him alive was no longer worth the effort? Would he soon be pleading for his life from the wrong end of a noose?

He tried to break free of the guard's grip— _and do what? Go where?_ —but the man flung open a door and shoved Lafayette through it, so hard he stumbled and nearly fell. He barely had time to catch his balance before he was pushed forward into a chair. The guard snatched up a pair of manacles from the desk in front of Lafayette and snapped one tight around his left wrist, passing the chain beneath the arm of the chair before securing Lafayette's right.

_No. Not like this. Not trapped like a fox in a snare. Waiting for the dogs._

He tried to rise, to pull his wrists free, but it was no use. In a growing panic, Lafayette whipped his head over his shoulder, but the guard had already begun to leave.

"Be patient," the man said with an unkind smile. "Someone will be by for you, I expect."

The slam of a door, and then Lafayette was alone again.

Warily, he looked forward, eyes sweeping across the room. They must have been traveling up after all. He now found himself in a well-furnished office, plainly above-ground. Before him, a sturdy oaken desk, a set of half-filled bookcases, a map of Austria, Switzerland, and France spread across the desk. Large windows along the left wall, windows that despite the thick curtains still let in enough light to sting.

_Not a transfer, then. Not an exchange. So…_

Lafayette craned around as best he could. The sound of the door opening set his whole body on edge. He turned just in time to see the bayonet-straight posture and insidious smirk of General Metz as he entered the office.

"Monsieur le marquis," he said, and crossed the room to lean easily against the desk, less than a foot from Lafayette. "You look well this afternoon. How kind of you to join me for a chat."

"What do you want from me?" Lafayette held his voice pistol-steady.

Fear rose within him with each heartbeat, but he forced his mind away from it. Fear would be the end of him. Fear would destroy him. He imagined the sensation of Peggy's hand in his, conjured up the echo of her voice soft in his ear.

_Stay alive. Whatever you do, stay alive._

An impossible order, in many ways. But even if he failed, he'd go down fighting.

"You appreciate, I'm sure, the delicate position I'm in," Metz said. "I don't particularly want to hurt you. I don't care about you at all, as a matter of fact. But our countries are at war, marquis. And you have information I need. Badly."

Information? For a moment, Lafayette was certain he'd misheard. What information did Metz think the Robespierrists would share with Lafayette?

"I want us to work together, marquis," Metz went on. "You will tell me what I want to know. And in return, I will ensure you're returned to your people with all possible expedience."

Lafayette clearly heard the cruel wink in the qualifying word, that _possible_. His freedom was impossible, until the war was over, unless he gave Metz what he wanted. And, though Metz didn't know it, Lafayette had no information to bargain with. He closed his eyes, finding himself longing for the dark seclusion of his cell. At least the darkness was predictable.

"May I ask you my questions, marquis?"

Lafayette had never been asked permission for anything with so much mockery, with so much scorn. When he opened his eyes, Metz was grinning like Christmas morning.

"Ask."

"How many French troops are currently camped on the border with Germany?"

Lafayette paused. "I don't know."

Metz frowned, his mustache twitching in irritation. "You don't know."

"As I said."

"You're a general of the French army, and you expect me to believe you don't know."

Lafayette had no energy for an argument. "I don't expect you to believe anything. But whether or not you believe it, it's the truth."

Metz took a step forward and placed one hand on either arm of Lafayette's chair, leaning forward until barely three inches separated their faces. Lafayette could feel the Austrian general's hot breath against his skin.

"And I imagine you want me to believe you don't know the location of your army's next strike either."

Lafayette's bold, silent stare did not contradict him.

"Monsieur Lafayette," Metz said, with patience that landed like poison. "I don't think you fully understand the position you're in. I've been polite to you thus far. Given you clothes, food, a roof above your head. But my men, they have no great love for the French. And, as I say, I genuinely don't care what happens to you."

Metz leaned back against the desk once again, but his eyes still drilled through Lafayette. He clung to the imagined sound of Peggy's voice.  _Stay alive, love. Just stay alive._

"I know you have the information we need, marquis," Metz went on, voice growing colder by the syllable. "And while my men and I have ways of forcing you to give it to us, I'd rather not use them. So. Shall I ask again?"

If his life were important, Lafayette might have made up a lie in an attempt to save it. But false information would seal his fate even more surely than staying silent would.

"You can do what you like, General," Lafayette said. "But the fact remains that I don't know. And I wouldn't tell a dog like you even if I did."

The violent movement of Metz's mustache was the only sign of his agitation, but it was enough. For a moment, Lafayette thought Metz might take the pistol from his belt and shoot him, _with all possible expedience_. But after a long moment, Metz strode past Lafayette and flung open the door to the office, where the waiting guard snapped to attention.

"Take the marquis de Lafayette back to his cell," he snarled. "See he receives no food and no water for the next forty-eight hours."

"Yes, general," the guard said.

"Once your fast is done, marquis," Metz said, "perhaps you'll have the clarity of mind to make me a better answer."

In moments, the guard had unchained Lafayette from the chair and forced him from the room.

Repressed fear soaring back through his body left Lafayette a passenger in his own body, observing as if from a great distance. The guard unlocked the door to Lafayette's cell and shoved him in the small of his back, hard enough that he fell forward, catching himself with his hands.

The door slammed shut.

Nothing but darkness, and the pounding of his own heart, and the skittering of a rat somewhere in the shadows.

_God help me, Peggy. Don't let me die here._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of these days I'll write the Schuyler Sisters Pirate AU that I've been toying with for years...
> 
> Comments and kudos are dearly loved!


	20. Keep Your Flame

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some fluff this time, because after the day I and my country have had, I figure now's as good a time as any.

When Lafayette heard the sound of footsteps beyond his cell door, he didn't even blink. After five months in a prison cell, it was profoundly difficult to be surprised by things.

The guards' visits to his cell weren't regular, but they were identical each time they happened. A plate of food dropped to the ground. A series of insults in German. And then he would be alone again. General Metz's visits were rarer still, but no less formulaic. Questions Lafayette couldn't and wouldn't answer, threats that could be made good at any time. No reason to react to any of this, really. Better to conserve his strength for when it was actually needed.

He remained lying on his back on the floor, hands folded behind his head, legs outstretched. A childish pose. He remembered lying this way in the fields of Chavaniac, seeing knights and dragons in the clouds before Catherine arrived, shouting at him for evading his tutor yet again.

He barely noticed when the door to his cell opened, admitting a guard who stowed a torch in the bracket on the wall.

"As I said," the guard snapped, as though explaining a very simple fact to a very dull person, "alive and well, and unharmed. Much good may that do you."

Lafayette's brain snagged on the words. The guard was speaking to someone. Someone who hadn't been here before. And as far as Lafayette was concerned, a newcomer could bring nothing but trouble. Warily, he sat up and shifted to face the door.

Lafayette had spoken four languages fluently at one point, but in that moment, he couldn't remember a word in any of them. He stared, blankly, stupidly, at the pair standing at the door.

The guard, a scowl bearing down his broad face.

And beside him, wearing an expression Lafayette was sure mirrored his own, stood Peggy.

A dream.

It had to be a dream.

But no matter how many times he blinked, no matter how hard he stared, she remained stubbornly present. Hair tied back from her face, her coat—his coat, he realized dully—worn and mud-splattered with travel. Real. She had to be real.

They stared at each other, neither paying the guard any attention as he left, slamming and locking the door behind them.

Lafayette rose to his feet. His hands were shaking. His brain had forgotten how to think.

"Peggy," he whispered. "Peggy, how…"

"Lafayette," she said.

Before either of them could complete a sentence, Peggy pulled her husband into a vise-tight embrace. He collapsed into her arms and wept. Wept while his head hummed empty and his heart soared with a sudden, painful excess of feeling, joy and love and relief and the sense of taking a full breath of air for the first time in months. Her embrace was almost defensive, like someone might steal him away from her if she were ever to let go.

It might have been minutes or days before their embrace faded. When Peggy looked at Lafayette, it was with the smile he'd painted in his mind every day for five months. Sadder, shadowed around the edges. But the same.

"You're alive," she said. "You're alive."

"You gave me one job," he said, finding proper words at last. "Don't get myself killed. I've tried to oblige."

It was the most like himself Lafayette had sounded in months. The shadow on Peggy's smile disappeared. She looked to him then like the young woman of nineteen who had approached him across a crowded Albany ballroom.

"You've always been so obliging," she said, grinning. "Oblige me this?"

And they kissed—the kiss of Orpheus and Eurydice, a kiss across the underworld, across an imagined death so tangible that finding it false felt like a resurrection. Lafayette tasted heaven on her lips.

Overcome with surprise, he sank to the ground. Peggy sat beside him, holding tight to his hands all the while.

"Peggy," Lafayette said weakly, "how did you get here?"

"I've just been to see the King of Austria," she said.

As if that explained anything.

Lafayette stared. "I beg your pardon?"

"What, you think I can't smooth-talk my way into a king's presence without help from you?"

"Do you even speak German?" It was nowhere near the question Lafayette actually wanted to ask, but in his current stupefied state it was the only thing that came to mind.

Peggy shrugged. "Not a word. But that's the thing about kings, isn't it? They have translators. And really, at the end of the day, my message was quite simple."

Lafayette paused. "Love, I know that tone. I don't trust that tone. What in God's name did you tell the king?"

"Only that if I wasn't granted permission to see you, I'd make sure the French burned the Austrian countryside to the ground."

Lafayette blinked several times. "And he believed you?"

"Trust me," Peggy said grimly. "I made sure of it."

He stared at her for a long moment, before his face broke into the first genuine smile he could remember in the last five months. The unfamiliar motion ached in his muscles, like a toothache from too much sweetness.

"You're a threat to be reckoned with," he said. "And my God, I've never been so happy to see someone in all my life."

"And I won't leave you," she said. "Never again."

The smile on Lafayette's face dimmed. Surely she didn't mean that literally. The consequences of their situation descended all at once, startling him out of speech. The cold stone walls of his cell. The dim, too-transient light from the dying torch that would soon give way to darkness. The hunger in his belly that, forgotten until now, roared forward with a vengeance. He had a hundred questions to ask, each more horrified than the last. But in the end, all he managed was a simple, stunned "What?"

Peggy, realizing he hadn't understood—or refused to understand—spoke gently. "How did you think I got permission to see you?" she asked. "They couldn't risk my organizing an escape with someone from the outside. And they're right to worry," Peggy added, attempting to lighten the mood. "I already had a plan. Angelica and her husband might still come through. We corresponded while I was staying in Vienna."

But Lafayette's concerns wouldn't be put off. Not even for an escape attempt, though he had plenty of clarifying questions on that score for a later date.

"Are you saying…"

"They wouldn't let me visit. They would only let me stay."

As a fellow prisoner.

Locked away for God knew how long, under imagined charges no one could fight. What had felt until now like a miracle twisted into a curse. But Peggy, sensing the turn of his thoughts, gripped his hand harder.

"Which is what I wanted," she said. "Wherever you are, that's where I want to be. Without you, the whole world's a prison. With you, a prison cell is home."

_No. God be damned, you've already cried like a child in front of your wife once. That's more than enough for one day._

"What book of poetry did you steal that from?" he asked, hiding the pending tears in a joke.

Peggy rolled her eyes. " _Poems for Women Whose Husbands Repress Their Feelings,_ " she said.

He laughed and, rather than be betrayed by words again, kissed her with the language of a thousand poems.

Lafayette couldn't have said how long they sat together, Peggy nestled into the curve of his side, leaning against the cell wall. The distortion of time underground hadn't lessened, but, abruptly, he found he didn't mind. She fit so well against him, belonged so naturally beside him, that ten minutes or nineteen years would both have been too short. Time didn't matter, so long as she was next to him, speaking to him, her voice and her laughter slicing the darkness.

Laughter. That was the impossible thing about Peggy. Even here, even now, she found a way to laugh. And found a way—more surreal still—to make him laugh as well.

He had little of value to say to her, he found; the story of his capture took all of five minutes to relate, and she could see the entirety of his daily life since then just by looking around. But Peggy overflowed with stories. Of the latest news from New York and Philadelphia. Of the harebrained escape attempt Angelica and John Church had hatched together—utterly useless, and which would have resulted in certain death had Lafayette followed through with it, but a touching gesture all the same.

And, of course, the newest developments from Paris.

He wanted to stop listening, as her narrative turned to the subject of the September Massacres. The mass executions of political prisoners in every jail in Paris, led by Robespierre and his jaundiced demagogue Marat. Peggy saw the look of nausea roll across Lafayette's face and hesitated, but he urged her to finish with a sharp jerk of his head. And, hesitantly, she told him everything.

The screams, drifting day and night from Châtelet, from Saint-German-des-Près. The bodies piled high in the streets and prison courtyards, stacked like skulls walled up in catacombs. Crows circling. The stink of death reaching to heaven, if heaven and such a stink could coexist.

If they'd caught him in Paris. If Peggy hadn't warned him in time. If she'd been half an hour later.

That would have been Lafayette.

Lafayette felt his stomach turn. He gripped Peggy's hand tightly, a well of strength to draw from.

"Vampires," he muttered under his breath, fighting back nausea. "Robespierre and the rest, all of them vampires. Growing stronger with the blood of their people. Was this the revolution they wanted?"

"I think it was," Peggy said. "I shouldn't have mentioned it. But I knew you'd want to hear."

He closed his eyes, feeling much older than he was, and impossibly tired. "I do want to hear. All of it. God knows why."

God knew, and, though he'd never admit it to his wife, Lafayette knew too.

He'd lost both his parents as a child, and had been brought up in the military tradition of the French aristocracy. With this cold, practical environment shaping him, Lafayette had only ever loved two things with his undivided heart and soul: Peggy Schuyler, and his country. The former he had, and had him, an impossible Gordian knot of possession and surrender that sent vertigo spiraling into his brain the longer he thought about it. The latter…

It was like watching the death of a parent. Their body crumbling, worn into dust and corrupted by decay, yet still, somewhere, the same idol you had always loved.

The utopia turned terror.

_A man should be lucky enough to have one pure love in the course of a life. Trying for two is foolishness._

Lafayette laughed to himself, shaking his head. Peggy pulled back to look at him.

"What in God's name are you laughing at?" she asked.

Lafayette realized how unsettling it must be from Peggy's perspective, segueing from the September Massacres to self-deprecating laughter without a pause.

"I was thinking about what Washington would think, if he saw me now and knew what I was thinking," he admitted. "And I know just what he'd say, too," he added with a grin. "'Son, why are you determined to make yourself unhappy? Pull yourself together. Martyrs make poor husbands.'"

He knew his impression of Washington's languid Virginian accent had been an absolute disgrace, but he didn't think that fully explained Peggy's scowl.

"Don't you hate him?" she asked. "After what he did?"

Or didn't do.

The same pang of disappointment twinged in Lafayette's chest, but he ignored it as best he could. With Peggy leaning beside him, it was an easier trick to manage.

"I don't. Not really. How could I hate anyone, Peggy, when you're here with me?"

Peggy grinned, pushing his hair lightly off his forehead. He shivered at her touch—for a change, not from the cold.

"What I said earlier, love, about your repressed emotions?" she said. "Ignore that. You're the most sentimental creature I've ever seen on two legs."

"Guilty," Lafayette admitted with a shrug. "I am French, after all."

The kiss that followed on the heels of this statement occupied their attention so entirely that neither of them noticed the Austrian guard who had just entered the cell. Not, that is, until he coughed loudly behind them, projecting his discomfort into the room. Lafayette glanced over his shoulder and could barely hide a laugh. He hadn't seen a man so uncomfortable since his days in the Continental Army, when a drunken Alexander had launched into a loud and spirited discussion of his latest romantic liaison and scandalized Aaron Burr to within an inch of his life.

Peggy raised an eyebrow, glancing at the guard. "Does one not knock in Austria?" she asked.

"I…er…" The poor guard fumbled with the beginning of a sentence for a moment. Lafayette wanted to laugh, but breaking at this point would cost him the advantage. He bit his tongue, forcing his expression to remain stoic.

"Can I help you?" he asked, his tone frosty. "Unless you stopped by simply for a chat."

The guard cleared his throat again. "I have an order from His Majesty the King of Austria."

"Have you?" Lafayette said. "As you might remember, my countrymen do not currently put much stock in kings."

Peggy glanced at him, plainly torn between wanting to laugh and wondering how on Earth she'd married a man this stupid.

The guard shifted his weight to the opposite leg, looking at neither Lafayette nor Peggy. "His Majesty says that, in light of the recent change of circumstances—"

"In light of me, you mean," Peggy added.

"In light of the circumstances," the guard pressed on, as if she hadn't spoken, "your current situation is no longer appropriate. A room has been prepared for you upstairs, where you will be held for the duration of your captivity."

Lafayette stared. This was simply too much shock for one day. The word "room," and the world of difference between a room and a cell, had thrown his brain into a loop.

_A room. Upstairs. Light._

_And Peggy._

_Lord God, I don't know what I did to deserve this, but I promise you, I'll do twenty times more to thank you._

Peggy gently dug her shoulder into Lafayette's side, a soft gesture hinting at an embrace to come when they were next alone. "We thank His Majesty for his consideration."

"If you would follow me?" the guard said stiffly.

Peggy rose to her feet, then extended a hand and helped Lafayette to his. He looked around his cell one final time, this tiny stone tomb that had been the entirety of his world for nearly half a year. And then, Peggy at his side, a lightness in his heart that felt almost unearthly, he followed the guard out of the cell, and toward the light of day.

It wasn't freedom. It wasn't even close. But in that moment, he wanted nothing more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A million thanks as always for reading! Drop me a note if you like—I live for them.


	21. Bring Him Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoutout is probably due at this point in the narrative to Marie Adrienne de Lafayette, the original 18th-century badass who actually did most of the things I'm having Peggy do at this point. Bless, Adrienne. (Though I've got no proof she actually punched Desmoulins, I choose to believe she did, and no one can tell me otherwise.)

Lafayette stood stunned in front of the doorway, looking around in silence. Peggy glanced at him, nervous, then took both of his hands.

"Come on," she said, "sit. It's all right."

_All right_ was relative, of course, but her words nudged him into motion. Their new room was no palace, but Peggy knew Lafayette was overwhelmed by the change, and followed the movement of his eyes to judge why. The bed, two woolen blankets stretched across its length. A chair. The small table beside it, with a worn Bible resting on its surface. And the tiny window, two feet by four inches, allowing a rectangle of sunlight to shine across the floor.

The way his eyes lingered on the light, so much that he didn't even notice the door lock again behind them, made Peggy want to cry. Or to hold him forever, until she absorbed the edges of his darkness, leaving him whole again.

How long would they have kept him in that cage, if she hadn't come?

Lafayette sat on the edge of the bed, pulling one of the blankets around his shoulders like a cloak. He still shivered, but the wool took off the edge. "I should warn you," he said, as Peggy sat beside him. "They'll likely question you. They've questioned me."

A series of wild images flashed through Peggy's mind: interrogation, torture, medieval dungeons with echoing screams and creaking iron. She swallowed, trying not to let Lafayette see her fear. She'd known what she was getting into, when she agreed to the Austrians' terms. Now wasn't the time to get cold feet. If he could do this, she could do this.

"Question me about what?" she asked.

"The French army's movements. Its plans. Its commanders." He shrugged, bitterness dripping from the movement. "Other things I don't know anything about. If you don't know, you don't know. I only wanted you to be prepared."

"I'm a Schuyler," she said. "Schuylers are always prepared."

"Is that so?" he asked, a smile warming the coldness in his eyes. "I've said this before, Peggy, but some days I wonder if you should have been the soldier, not me."

She shook her head and ducked a shoulder beneath the blanket, nestling into the curve of his side. "You know what your problem is?"

Lafayette gave her a sideways look. "No, love. Tell me what my problem is. I yearn to know."

"You're too idealistic," she said. "You expect other men to behave reasonably, to do what's right, to fight for truth and honor above all. No one's perfect, Lafayette. Not even you."

He rolled his eyes—a gesture that reminded her of a hundred other evenings they'd spent, in taverns or in parlors, in a constellation of different bedrooms shimmering across the sky of their marriage, teasing and taking the teasing in turn.

"You make me sound like a child, Peggy. I hope you don't think I'm that stupid."

"No," she said, and pressed closer beside him. "I think you're a good man. The best of men, and best of husbands. I wish we lived in a world that was good enough for you."

Being the youngest of three sisters had its privileges, among them the knowledge of what not to look for in a husband. Angelica had landed with a distant, insipid gentleman, one who could provide for her financially but in no other way. Eliza had tried to trap lightning in a bottle, marrying a man more in love with his own incandescent ideas than the world around him. Third time's the charm, they said, and as Lafayette shook his head in quiet exasperation and kissed her, she had to agree.

A thought occurred to her, an island of perfect clarity amid the sea of that kiss. A thought so stupid that she recognized its stupidity even before she'd finished thinking it, the bad idea to end all bad ideas. And yet, at the same time, it wouldn't go away.

She laughed. Not self-deprecating laughter at her own poor decision-making. But joy.

Lafayette pulled back, looking at her curiously. "Peggy? What are you thinking about?"

She paused. Why were the right words never there when you needed them? "If I tell you," she said, "promise you'll let me finish. And promise you won't be angry."

Lafayette cocked his head to one side. "Peggy, will I like what you're asking?"

"I'm not asking anything, I'm…I'm raising a possibility. To gauge your response."

"Gauge away," he said, his skepticism not lessening an inch.

"Now, don't be angry with me, love," she said. "I don't mean it seriously."

Lafayette's eyebrows lifted delicately to his hairline. "All right, Peggy," he said. "I'm sufficiently concerned now. You may ask the question." He folded his legs in front of him, leaning against the cold wall of their new prison.

"I was just thinking," Peggy said, "about when you and I visited the Burrs. About when Aaron let you hold Theodosia. How happy that child looked. And how in love with her you seemed to be. How natural you looked with her."

"Peggy," Lafayette interrupted, clearly sensing the turn of this conversation. But Peggy, once she'd worked up the courage to begin, would not be shut down.

"And I just felt, then, and I feel now, that…that we ought to have a family at some point."

Lafayette stared. For a moment, Peggy was afraid he'd lost the power of speech. That she'd struck him mute and paralyzed, and he'd never move again from the shock. After a long pause, during which she wished twenty times she could escape, he cleared his throat. When he spoke, his voice still carried a level of strain.

"Peggy, are you asking what I think you're asking?"

"I'm not asking. I told you."

"Are you raising the possibility of what I think you're raising the possibility of?" he countered, without missing a beat.

His expression was strange, one she'd never seen before. Between the shadows in his face and the stiffness of his posture, she couldn't tell whether he was considering the idea or marveling at its wrongness. She felt the blood rush to her face, and fumbled for the words that could save her humiliation and his discomfort. Why didn't she ever think before she spoke? Why wasn't she as careful as Eliza, as forward-thinking as Angelica? Why did she always have to say what she was thinking?

"Lafayette, I just wanted to say it. I've been thinking of it, but I know now isn't the time, that…"

"Because if that's what you're asking, Peggy, my answer is yes."

Now it was Peggy's turn to feel as if her heart might tumble out of her chest. Lafayette smiled at her, that old spark dancing in his eyes. The spark that could have preceded a reckless bayonet charge at a line of British soldiers, or three too many drinks and an impromptu out-of-season bout of Christmas caroling beneath Charles Lee's window, or a locked bedroom door and an evening with Peggy that somehow stretched into the next afternoon. It was the look of a man who knows he was making a reckless decision, and yet who knew that nothing would bring him more joy than the stupid and ill-advised thing he was about to do.

He took Peggy's hands in his, speaking calmly, yet with a smile curling the edge of every word.

"Peggy. If there's one thing I know from all my years of loving you, it's that tomorrow is impossible to know. Tomorrow we may rule Europe together, or tomorrow I may be dead, or tomorrow you may be an ocean away from me. The only thing I know is that I'll always, always love you. I want to watch our family grow. And waiting for the right moment is absurd."

"Because you'll always be flinging yourself headfirst into some dangerous scenario," Peggy agreed—feeling herself on the brink of tears, and not quite knowing why.

"And you'll always be doing the same, Madame I've-Just-Punched-Camille-Desmoulins-In-The-Face," Lafayette added, grinning. "The point is, we may never have a safe moment to try. This may be the safest moment we ever get. And rather than losing the chance of starting a family with you, I'd run any risk a hundred times over."

Now the tears were present, and damn it all, Peggy didn't even care. This wild dream, this impossible hope, suddenly out between them, and the glow of his smile as he heard her wish and said yes, that it was his as well. It was too much, too sudden, all at once. She hugged him close, and he held her with hands that did not shake.

His heartbeat against her ear was like a prayer, a promise of safety. She let the rhythm fill her, pulse in time with her own heart, with the tidal movement of her brain, with the motion of two people in perfect synchronicity.

A prison had never felt so full of possibility.

* * *

_Mount Vernon, Virginia_

How many times, during the cold winters of New York, during the dull rain of Philadelphia, had Washington dreamed of summer at Mount Vernon? He couldn't count, and didn't wish to. The air hung perfectly balanced, cool in its stillness, the distant song of a mockingbird in the grove of trees not far from the house. An almost-autumn hush, when thought slowed to a molasses crawl. Indolence seemed naturally suited to the pace of things.

Washington sat on the steps of the wooden veranda, watching as the colors of dusk faded and the sparks of lightning bugs pinpricked through the dimming sky. A lit pipe smoldered in his right hand, but he seemed to have forgotten about it. Indeed, he seemed to have forgotten about most things, and leaned into the forgetfulness as a kind of bliss.

When two sets of footsteps approached behind him, Washington didn't even seem to hear. Only when Martha cleared her throat did he notice. Not for several long seconds after that did he turn.

"Secretary Hamilton to see you," Martha said coldly. Not out of disdain for her husband, but from a very clear desire to have the secretary thrown from the premises like a common criminal.

Laughing quietly, Washington turned to give his wife the indulgent smile of a long-married man. Behind Martha, Alexander's slim figure was barely visible. To be fair, he seemed to be doing his absolute damnedest to disappear.

"Thank you, Martha," Washington said, gesturing for Alexander to sit beside him on the stair. "We won't be long."

"I should hope not," Martha muttered. She disappeared back into the house, as if convinced the Treasury Secretary would make an attempt on her virtue if she stayed three minutes more in his presence.

Awkwardly, Alexander sat beside Washington. For a man born in the Caribbean, the Treasury Secretary always seemed profoundly uncomfortable out of doors. The anxiety radiating from him was certainly not from the Virginian air alone, however. But, Washington reasoned, Alexander would get to that when he got to it. And in any case, it was far too pleasant an evening to ruin with probing questions.

"I'm sorry to trouble you at home, Mr. President," Alexander began. "I know these are your two weeks of vacation, but…"

"But you were in the neighborhood and thought you would drop by?" Washington asked with a knowing smirk. "New York and Mount Vernon are essentially neighbors, after all."

Alexander looked away. Terrified of silence as always, he immediately began speaking, far too many words at once.

"I had to leave New York for a few days. To clear my head. You see, sir, I…I think I've made a terrible mistake, Mr. President. It's not financial, my records are clean, there's nothing untoward that could affect the cabinet, but it's of a deeply personal nature. And I—"

Washington held up a hand, stopping Alexander before he truly got underway. If there was one thing worse than having his solitude interrupted by the unexpected arrival of politicians, it was hearing the sordid details of Alexander Hamilton's latest affair. That kind of talk belonged in the gossip-ridden streets of New York City, not the sloping fields of Virginia.

"Son, just sit. Enjoy the silence. Think for a few minutes before you speak. For a change."

"But sir, I think you should know," Alexander protested—Washington raised his eyes to the heavens for patience. "As a member of your cabinet, my actions in this affair could permanently tarnish your reputation, unless you protect yourself."

Washington laughed, shaking his head as the lightning bugs thickened on the grass. "My reputation? Trust me, I can do enough damage to that without your help."

Alexander frowned, plainly not catching the meaning. Washington almost envied him that fixed sense of purpose. Not to feel guilt over things that were done, and couldn't have been helped.

"What do you mean, sir?"

Remembering the pipe in his hand, Washington sighed and took a long pull of tobacco. The smoke curled away from the veranda, stretching translucent fingers toward the dying light.

"Lafayette," Washington said simply. "I can't stop thinking about him."

"Sir," Alexander said, "you can't blame yourself for what happened. You did what was best for the country."

"Secretary Jefferson thinks I betrayed Lafayette," Washington said.

"Sir—"

"Secretary Jefferson is right."

Another long breath of smoke filled the silence before Washington spoke again.

"I pray every night for God to bring him home. Every night. And every night, I wonder if God's ignoring me, because everything that happened to him is our fault."

To this, and for the first time Washington could remember, Alexander Hamilton had nothing to say.

* * *

_Olmütz, Austria_

"Are you sure?"

Peggy had to laugh at the look of wonder on Lafayette's face. He was like a child on Christmas morning. Not the usual reaction to an announcement made in a prison cell, she had to admit. But then, nothing about their circumstances was really normal. She sat in the room's sole chair; he had stood up from the bed at her announcement, as if the words electrified him.

"I'm sure," she said, and laughed as he crossed the room to lay the palm of one hand against her belly. "Lafayette, it can't be more than eight weeks, you aren't going to feel anything."

"Eight weeks," he repeated. But words beyond that point proved a bridge too far. "We…" he began, but lost the rest of the sentence somewhere in the curve of his smile.

"We're going to have a child," Peggy finished, and kissed.

The words repeated endlessly in her head, a delirium of happiness.

_We're going to have a child. Lafayette and I are going to have a child._

"I was thinking," she said, as he knelt beside her.

"Of?"

"Names," she said. "I know it's early yet, but—"

"Prison," he said with a knowing smile. "Not much to do but think."

She nodded. It still felt like tempting fate, talking of names this early. She couldn't count the number of women she'd known who had felt confident in their pregnancies, only to lose them before delivery. But fate had taken so much from them over the years. Surely it would let them have this.

"If it's a girl, I thought Philippa," Peggy said. "After my father."

"Philippa," Lafayette repeated, testing out the sound of it. "Yes. Yes, I think so."

"Good," Peggy said. "My father lives for having children named after him. I think Eliza did it twice. And if it's a boy, I thought we could name him Michael. After your father."

To her surprise, Lafayette shook his head. A thoughtful cast came into his eyes. Not for the first time, she wished she could follow his thoughts while he was having them.

"I barely knew my father, Peggy," he said. "He died before I could talk. No. If I were to name our son after a better father to me than that…How do you feel about Georges?"

Peggy blinked. Then blinked again. Lafayette waited in silence, not reacting, saying nothing. Obviously he'd expected this, and patiently waited to see what her shock would become.

If he'd guessed "indignation," he'd have won the bet.

"Georges, after Washington?" she demanded.

As if Lafayette could have had another Georges in mind. He merely nodded.

"The man who abandoned you?" she went on. "Who took your service for free and turned his back on you? The man who's let you sit in prison for over a year?"

Lafayette stood up. His posture didn't seem angry. He wouldn't contradict her. But she sensed a note of sadness in him when he responded, as if he'd have given anything just to make her see.

"He taught me everything," he said. "I wouldn't be who I am without him. And he treated me like a son. He truly did. Can I blame him for protecting his country? Can you blame him for that? He's one of the best men I've ever met."

Where did it come from, Lafayette's superhuman capacity for forgiveness? She'd never understand it. Could never hope to cultivate it in herself. Her anger was the lingering kind, the slow burn that outlasted the winter and crackled through the spring.

But at Lafayette's words, she felt the last wisps of her anger float away. She didn't have to understand. It was enough that Lafayette had forgiven, and his forgiveness caused her love for him to surge forward, rendering the rest beside the point.

"Yes," she said, "all right then. If it's a girl, Philippa. And if it's a boy, Georges."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A million thanks for reading! We're nearing toward the end, and your feedback means so very much to me.


	22. Mothers, Sisters, Wives, Women

_New York City_

"Eliza."

The door did not open.

Alexander sighed and dug his hands deeper into his pockets. The floorboards creaked beneath him as he shifted to the opposite leg, both eyes on the ground.

"Eliza, please. I need to talk to you."

If a door could have spat at someone and turned its back, this door would have done it.

From the other end of the hall, Alexander saw a small head peek around the corner, a mop of curly hair, black eyes—but the moment he met those eyes, the child vanished. William, probably. The boy clung to Eliza like a burr, and when his mother had retreated to the parlor and slammed the door, Will had started to cry.

That had been hours ago. Since then, Alexander had wandered through the house, with an undeniable sense of the space Eliza would have taken up, if she were there. As if her ghost didn't leave enough room for her husband to walk these halls alone. He caught himself on the word "ghost," but didn't replace it in his mind. It did, somehow, feel as if someone died.

Straightening his back, Alexander spoke again. A little louder this time, to be heard if not seen. Words would save this. Words had to.

"Eliza, love, I'm so sorry. I'm not saying I didn't make a mistake. I did. I made a mistake. But I had to write it. My reputation was in question. The value of the Constitution and our government was in question. It was the only thing I could do."

He knew she could hear him. The doors weren't thick, the house old and drafty. He used to hear her and Phillip singing in the front parlor when he was three floors up in his study. Back when she still sang. The silence hung so heavily he wondered if she were even breathing.

"I want to make it up to you, Eliza. I want to make it better. Please, tell me what I can do."

It occurred to him as he stood there, watching the door, picking out patterns in the wood grain, that he couldn't remember the last time he'd apologized. To anyone. For anything. The words tasted sour in his mouth, but he forced himself to sit with their flavor, not to spit them out.

He got nothing but silence for it.

On the other side of the door, Eliza sat in the bay window with her back against the glass. The surface chilled her through her dress, but she knew that wasn't why she was shaking.

Her gaze tripped over the desk beside the piano, where a pile of papers were spread across its surface. At least twenty sheets, each covered with Alexander's writing. Narrow, leaning, yet expansive.

His writing.

His words.

_His words, his words, his words._

She wanted to ball them up and throw them, one by one, into his face, until he choked on his own lying, worthless words.

"Eliza, please, let me in," he said from beyond the door. "Tell me what I can do."

She didn't move. Her voice was like wind whistling through a hollow drum, through an empty skull.

"Go away, Alexander."

A long, cold pause, and then the sound of footsteps, slowly retreating back down the hall.

Her sobs surprised her—so loud against the silence, so sudden.

They frightened her. They ached. And she couldn't make them stop.

 

* * *

 

_London_

"Darling, I know you're worried. But it won't be long. Just an hour or two. I promise."

John leaned over to massage Angelica's shoulders, but she shrugged him away. The low lamplight cast a flattering glow as she sat in front of the vanity in the bedroom, watching the backward reflection of her husband draw back half a step. Faint offense glittered from each of his movements.

They had both been dressed and ready for ten minutes. He in his finest suit, she in a rose-colored gown that left her shoulders bare, sweeping like a waterfall out from her waist. But though she was ready, she made no attempt to move, and none of John's gentle coaxing had stirred her.

He tried again, his smile showing thin around the edges.

"I don't particularly want to go either, love, but Lord and Lady Carstairs hold a tremendous deal of power in Parliament. They've been most insistent about wanting to meet you."

"I know," Angelica replied. "You've said."

It was what he _hadn't_ said that mattered to her.

He hadn't said he knew she didn't want to spend another evening being stared at, John Church's exotic American wife. That her own happiness and comfort mattered more to him than the entitled whim of some member of the House of Lords she'd never met. That he knew her thoughts were on her sisters—both of them—and that he was concerned for them as well.

He hadn't said any of that. And he never would. That would require a spine far stronger than the one barely keeping John Church upright.

She stood up, almost smiling to herself as John drew back in alarm.

"We'll only stay one hour," she said, reaching for her shawl. "Then I need to come back. I have a letter I need to write before morning, and I don't intend to let Lord Carstairs of all people hold me up."

John swallowed as he followed her out of the bedroom and toward the front door, out into the gaslit street where his phaeton and driver waited at the curb.

"To whom?" he asked finally.

Angelica looked down at the hand John extended to her, then, ignoring it, helped herself into the carriage. Chagrined, he followed, closing the door and signaling the driver to move.

"Captain Wentworth," Angelica said. "I need him to reserve me a place on the next ship to New York."

She was clearly not asking for permission.

"Two places," he corrected her. "Surely you know that I'm going with you. If you truly must go."

She shouldn't have resented John as much as she did. He was only trying to love her the best he knew how, even if no one had ever taught him the first thing about loving a woman. But the way he looked at her, with the woundedness of a baby bird, made her want to jump out of the carriage and run. Run and never look back.

She sighed. "John. My sister needs me."

_And she doesn't need you._

John had removed the monogrammed handkerchief from his pocket, and was now wringing it between his hands in a refined need to throttle something.

"Darling," he said. "I know you don't respect me. But do at least try to pretend in front of Lord Carstairs tonight. He _is_ damnably important."

She didn't respond.

They rode the rest of the way in silence. He wringing the handkerchief, she thinking in turn of Eliza disgraced, of Peggy in prison, and of how desperately she herself needed a drink.

 

* * *

 

_Olmütz, Austria_

The pacing, Lafayette knew, wasn't even remotely helpful for his nerves. In fact, it was probably making things worse.

He reached the far wall of the tiny room, pivoted, and paced back toward the door. He'd tried sitting still, cultivating the detached calmness that had carried him safely through two revolutions. But the longer he sat in one place, the more his skeleton seemed to revolt, as though his skin were too small for his bones. And so he'd pounced to his feet and begun this stalking, desperate circling of the room.

Waiting for news. Hearing none.

He didn't know how long Peggy had been gone. Hours, at least. It was dark outside now, but the light through the small barred window had shone like mid-morning when her contractions began to quicken. Not knowing what to do, he'd pounded frantically on the door, shouting himself hoarse until a guard arrived.

"She's going into labor," Lafayette had said, gesturing over his shoulder at his wife.

The guard had stared, eyes vacant as a goldfish. "What in God's name do you want me to do about it?"

Lafayette could have screamed. He might have, in fact. Through his panic, he hadn't been the best judge of his own volume. "There has to be a doctor in this goddamned prison. Jesus Christ, get her to a doctor!"

And to the guard's credit, he had. Leaving Lafayette alone, locked in this cell, desperately waiting for any information at all.

When he'd lain awake at night over the past nine months, imagining his first moments with their child, he'd always thought he would be more levelheaded. He'd literally stared down cannons, surely he could handle birth. But in the moment, his soldier's discipline had failed him. Instead, he found himself here, walking and thinking in circles.

_Worrying won't change anything. She'l be fine. Just wait. Sooner or later, they have to tell you what's happening._

They didn't have to, of course. But he wouldn't allow himself to think of that. Instead, he focused on the steps required to traverse the tiny room, again and again and again.

"Lieutenant general?"

Lafayette tripped over nothing. Twisting to catch himself on the chair at the last minute, he whirled around. In the doorway, a young guard stood with military straightness, his expression impassive. He might have been announcing a miracle or Armageddon.

"How is she?" Lafayette asked. His voice broke slightly, but he felt no shame in that. "Do you have any news?"

The guard's expression didn't so much as flicker. "I've come to bring you to her, lieutenant general. If you're ready."

"If I'm ready—" Indignation choked the tail end of his echo. "God damn it, take me to her."

Lafayette followed so closely on the guard's heels he was at great risk of tripping over the man's shoelaces. The guard hadn't bothered to bind his hands, for which Lafayette was grateful—he didn't have the time to waste, and any idiot could see he wasn't going to run away. Following in the shadow of the man, he wound through the prison's stone corridors.

Until at last, the man stopped outside a plain wooden door.

"She's inside, lieutenant general. I'll have to lock you in. You understand."

Not all the riches in all the world could have persuaded Lafayette to give a damn.

He shouldered past the guard, flinging the door open and bursting into the room like a human tornado. He heard the door shut behind him, and the turn of a key in the lock. But his attention was focused entirely on the scene now before him, a scene that caught his breath in the hollow of his throat.

The prison hospital hardly merited the name. A single cot against the far wall, cheap linen curtains drawn against a square window. Beside the bed, a low table strewn with various medical instruments, a pile of wadded-up cloths, a basin of water.

In the bed, the blankets pulled up to her waist, lay Peggy. Her gown damp with sweat, hair sticking in messy tendrils to her face. Deep shadows beneath her eyes. Sitting half-upright, her back resting against the wall.

And in her arms, wrapped in a white blanket, an impossibly small child, head dusted with fuzzy black hair, fast asleep.

She smiled at him. He came to sit at the edge of the bed feeling as if he was watching his own body from half a mile above.

"Peggy," he murmured, looking down at the tiny child, watching the blanket gently rise and fall.

"Well, Georges?" Peggy said, speaking to the child. "Would you like to say hello to your papa?"

_Georges._

_A son._

_My son. My God, look at my son._

Lafayette didn't know if the wave building in his chest meant he was about to laugh or cry. Either would have made as much sense as the other.

He reached out, and Peggy shifted Georges from her own arms into his. The weight, the warmth of the child against his chest felt like how he had always imagined heaven must feel. He carefully supported the child's head in the crook of his elbow, holding him as gently as if he were made of glass.

"Peggy," he said again, his voice low. "He's perfect."

"He is, isn't he?" She smiled. "He must get that from me."

Lafayette grinned. "Of course."

A small shift, a tiny sound like the sigh of a wren, and then Georges de Lafayette opened his black eyes and looked up into his father's face.

_Oh._

He could think of nothing more eloquent than that, in any language.

It seemed impossible that Lafayette could ever love anything or anyone as much as he loved the tiny boy in his arms, looking up at him with those perfect eyes.

No one but Peggy. She reached out to place one hand on his knee, smiling to match Lafayette's smile. He cradled Georges closer, murmuring softly to him in French.

" _C'est moi, mon petit. C'est ton papa."_

Georges didn't smile. He'd been in the world for under an hour; he hadn't yet learned how to do that. But the solemn, sincere look he gave Lafayette was as clear as anything. Belief. Total, unblinking trust.

Love.

"We did that," Peggy said, squeezing Lafayette's knee. Her smile took on a knowing air as Lafayette bit his tongue, trying not to cry. "Together. We did that."

"Yes," Lafayette said, never turning away from Georges. "We did."

_Our son._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, Alex. That thing you do. Why do you always have to go and do it?


	23. The Emperor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Minor time jump here, because y'know what happens to characters in prison? Very little.

After almost five years in prison, standing in the center of the Rue de Rivoli felt like standing on the moon.

Lafayette looked down the cobbled path leading up to the townhouse. How many times had he stumbled down that path at three in the morning, tired and elated after a day arguing constitutional minutiae with Jefferson and Danton and the rest? This was his house, his city, his country. And yet it had never felt more foreign. He had never felt more lost.

Sensing the shift in her husband's mood, Peggy reached over and took Lafayette's hand. "It looks different, doesn't it," she said.

Lafayette shook his head. "It looks the same. That's what unnerves me."

She smiled. "Come on. Standing here in the street all day won't make it any easier."

He bit his lower lip, but nodded. Looking at the respectable brick walls, the newly repainted shutters, he thought of his old life as a too-low doorway, forcing him to stoop to make himself fit.

Peggy knew Lafayette too well to let him brood. She started up the path, leading Georges along beside her. At just over two years old, the youngest Lafayette had nearly skipped the walking stage, moving straight into running. His mother had learned by now never to let go of his hand if she could help it.

Lafayette held back a moment, watching them with detachment he'd grown used to over the past several months. _Is that really my wife? Is that boy my son?_

In another man, the thought might have been sentimental. In Lafayette, it was a twisted sort of fatalism, the belief that anything this good couldn't be his, wouldn't last.

Still, Peggy was right. Standing here in the street staring at his house wouldn't make it any easier to reclaim his old life.

He followed his wife and son inside, gently closing the door after him.

His footsteps seemed to sound louder against the wood floor than he remembered. Warily, he slipped off his jacket, draping it over the small end table near the door. Had he really lived here, once? Had this really felt like home? Perhaps it would again, soon.

At the far end of the hall, a framed picture of his father hung beside the door to the parlor. The elder marquis had sat for the portrait three years before Lafayette himself had been born. In the painting, he looked every inch the dashing infantry captain, the buttons on his uniform gleaming like Spanish gold, his sword hanging from his belt. His eyes— _Georges' eyes, they have the same eyes_ —seemed to look directly at Lafayette from the frame. They asked a question Lafayette didn't understand, and wouldn't have known how to answer even if he had. He shivered.

A cold sort of home, indeed.

"Monsieur Lafayette."

Slowly, he turned. He knew the voice that called him, would have known it anywhere. But the tone, the apprehensive seriousness, was unfamiliar. He longed to see the owner of that voice. But he wasn't convinced he'd like the subject of their conversation.

"Catherine," he said, giving her a cautious smile.

Catherine's expression was complicated. Relief, primarily. Lafayette watched as her eyes swept over his body, and he knew she was forcing back a barrage of comments about how thin he'd become. But the relief was tempered by something else. Fear.

He was sure, in that moment, that they weren't alone in the house.

"Welcome home, monsieur," Catherine said. "I…I've worried about you. Constantly."

That, at least, was unreservedly true. Lafayette's smile warmed. Catherine laid one hand on either of his shoulders, as if to reassure herself he was still a mortal man, one who could be touched.

"You've kept the place up beautifully," he said. "I knew I could count on you."

"You…" she began, then paused.

"Yes?"

She swallowed, then tried again. "You have a visitor. He heard you'd return today, and he's been waiting since nine."

Lafayette glanced over his shoulder toward the grandfather clock on the east wall. Three-fifteen. Whoever this eager visitor was, he had the patience of a god.

"Well, I suppose I'd better see him, hadn't I?" Lafayette remarked.

"He's in the south parlor, monsieur." Catherine almost whispered the words, as if afraid the visitor would be whipped into a rage by the mere mention of the room.

A thought occurred to Lafayette, one that caused him to grimace. "It isn't Danton, is it?"

Catherine's eyes widened. "No, monsieur," she said, as if Lafayette had just asked if his visitor were Alexander the Great. "Monsieur Danton is dead. Desmoulins, Marat, Robespierre, all of them dead."

Lafayette knew he should have felt something at the news that the men who'd put a price on his head had been killed. But at Catherine's words, his heart gave a tremendous, decisive shrug.

"Well," he said, "that would rather preclude their visiting, wouldn't it?"

Catherine scowled at him, as if he were a child still and had just said something inappropriate at the dinner table.

Lafayette laughed. "My wife and I will attend to this visitor, Catherine. If you wouldn't mind watching my son?"

The moment he finished saying the words, he remembered that this was news to Catherine. Every trace of apprehension vanished from her face, replaced immediately by joy.

"Your son?" she said.

Peggy laughed, still holding Georges' hand—the sound of conversation in the hall had apparently attracted her attention. "We have a lot to talk about, I think, Catherine," she said, grinning.

"Apparently," Catherine said, looking at Georges in surprise.

"Georges, this is Aunt Catherine. Go on," Peggy said, urging the child forward, as Georges shied back behind Peggy's legs. "She's very happy to meet you."

"I've hoped to meet you for years," Catherine said, smiling broadly. "I've told your papa many times I hoped he'd have a son."

"She has," Lafayette said drily. "Constantly."

Catherine, ignoring him, bent down and extended her arms. In a moment, Georges flung aside his shyness and succumbed to Catherine's charms. The housekeeper appeared to be in raptures. Lafayette and Peggy could have been struck dead by a divine thunderbolt and it would have taken her several minutes to notice.

Lafayette laughed under his breath, before indicating the south parlor with a motion of his head. Peggy nodded, and side by side they crossed the hall, passing beneath the watchful painted eyes of Lafayette's father before entering the room.

In the south parlor, a man in full military dress leaned backward against the chimneypiece. A delicate-looking man, of average height and slightly built, he reminded Lafayette of the students in the Quartier Latin, wan and sickly youths who seldom emerge from their books except to stumble from one tavern to the next.

The man looked up as Lafayette and Peggy entered the room. His blue-gray eyes locked immediately on Lafayette's, with a sharpness that threw the marquis off-balance. Those eyes dispelled any notion of weakness or illness. Lafayette felt _seen_. Not just his appearance, but his motivations, his beliefs, his lies and his ambitions, all were laid bare before this strange man in his parlor.

It was not a comfortable feeling. Particularly not in one's own house.

"Monsieur le marquis," the man said. "And madame la marquise, I assume."

"You assume correctly," Peggy said. She didn't extend her hand to the man; he gave no sign he expected her to.

"I apologize for keeping you waiting," Lafayette said.

"No apologies are necessary." The man's tone implied the opposite. "I am a patient man."

"Had I known you'd call this morning, Monsieur…"

"Bonaparte," the man said, filling in the gap Lafayette had left. "And it's 'Commander.' To be precise."

Lafayette raised his eyebrows silently. So this was Napoleon Bonaparte. The daring French commander that raised such fear and hatred in the Austrians in Olmütz. The hero of the Siege of Toulon and of the War in the Vendée.

_Somehow I imagined he'd be taller._

"This is an honor, Commander," Lafayette said.

He gestured at the nearest chair, inviting Peggy to take a seat. She did, keeping her eyes on Napoleon, who—after a pause that seemed deliberately disrespectful—sat opposite her.

Lafayette remained standing. An advantage would be hard to come by in a conversation with this man, he could tell already. Height was a petty one, but he would take it.

Napoleon settled into the armchair, crossing one leg over the other. Those sharp blue eyes continued staring through Lafayette, pinning him in place like a butterfly to a card. "You look terrible, Monsieur Lafayette."

Lafayette's eyebrows remained raised. "I've been out of prison for four days, Commander. You can hardly expect me to be performing gymnastics in my parlor."

"All the same. The Republic would be hard-pressed to lose you. I would recommend a physician, with some haste."

It felt strange, receiving a compliment veiled in what might have been a death threat. Fortunately, Peggy responded, giving Lafayette time to regain his balance.

"I've made my husband an appointment with one of the pre-eminent physicians left in Paris, Commander," she said. "I assure you, your concerns over his health are appreciated, but unnecessary."

Napoleon smirked. Perhaps he meant it as a smile, but something was lost in translation between the idea and the execution. "I can see that. You're quite lucky, Monsieur, to have a wife so solicitous for your well being."

"I am," Lafayette agreed. He moved to take Napoleon's abandoned position against the chimneypiece, leaning against the wall in what he hoped looked like a relaxed manner. His legs ached from the journey, but he'd be damned if he'd let Napoleon catch him sitting. "Might I inquire as to the purpose of your visit? You must be quite eager to see me, if you're willing to wait six hours."

"As I said," Napoleon said easily, "I am quite patient."

Lafayette, on the other hand, was not. "All the same."

Napoleon smiled, appearing to enjoy Lafayette's discomfort. "You will be aware, I assume, Monsieur, that the Republic finds itself in need of a stronger government. After all, the horrors of the Terror cannot be allowed to repeat themselves, can they?"

Lafayette would have raised his eyebrows still further, had the laws of anatomy permitted it. "You can't truly think a return to terrorism likely, Commander. Not under the circumstances."

"No? Forgive me, Monsieur, but as I've been in France for the past five years, while you've been secluded in Austria, perhaps I would be a better judge of the nation's temperament."

The insult struck Lafayette like a punch to the stomach. As if he'd chosen to be captured. As if he'd been relaxing at a mountain chalet while Napoleon ran the country with a military fist. But his first day out of prison wasn't the best time to start making enemies. With great effort, he swallowed his own offense, trying to salvage the situation with diplomacy.

"Perhaps," Lafayette said. "All the same, I think you can understand my hesitancy over the words 'stronger government.' Particularly in light of my recent experiences with the Revolutionary Tribunal."

Napoleon snorted. "I'm a student of history, Monsieur. I rather think myself capable of learning from past mistakes. But I'll get to the point, because I can tell your wife would like nothing more than to have me thrown through your parlor window."

Lafayette glanced at Peggy, just in time to see her deliberately uncurl her fists.

"I want nothing of the kind," she said, in a voice that convinced no one.

Remembering his wife's track record of punching French politicians who irritated her, Lafayette forced himself not to laugh.

"I'm in the process of assembling a government, Monsieur," Napoleon said.

Lafayette started, but Napoleon seemed not to realize he'd said anything surprising. His tone was as casual as if he'd said, "I am in the process of buying a new set of china for my dining room."

"Is that so," Lafayette said carefully.

"And while I know that you've been…out of the public sphere for the past several years, I've always been a great admirer of your work. Particularly in the American campaign. I find myself in need of a new ambassador to the United States. And I can think of no better man than you for the job."

_Ambassador to the United States._

Five years ago, it might have been a compelling offer. To link the two republics he'd fought to build and preserve. The natural solution to the problem of his split consciousness, too French to be American and too American to be French. Working in tandem with his friends and brothers on both sides of the ocean. It might have been everything he wanted.

Now, looking at Napoleon, lounging across his armchair like a player king in a cut-rate theater, it almost startled him, how deeply revolting he found the offer.

A man like this, at the head of France's new government. A man who wouldn't stop with the power granted to him by the constitution. A man who'd keep grasping, keep striving. Who would stop at nothing to advance his own interests.

A king was restrained by propriety and precedent. A king's breeding made absolute power banal, so run-of-the-mill it was almost not worth talking about. But a man who made himself king. Now there was a tyrant to fear.

Liberty meant nothing to Napoleon, Lafayette could see that at once. Only power held any meaning. And Lafayette had no interest in power, not anymore.

He looked at Peggy. He knew his thoughts showed on his face, but he made no effort to disguise them. Their silent conversation was brief, but spoke volumes. She understood him—had always understood him, sometimes better than he understood himself—and she knew he couldn't accept. Not an offer like this.

She nodded. He returned his attention to Napoleon.

"I thank you for the offer, Commander," Lafayette said. "But I think you can understand that I've had quite enough of politics for one lifetime."

Napoleon snorted again. "You? The Marquis de Lafayette, had enough of politics? Can a fish have enough of water?"

"Very well," Lafayette said coldly. "Say, rather, that I have had enough of tyranny."

Napoleon stood up. Peggy, alarmed, rose as well, but Napoleon raised a hand, indicating that she had nothing to fear. She sat again, though she did not appear in the least convinced. The two men looked silently at one another for a moment. Napoleon's small body almost poised for attack, Lafayette still leaning easily against the chimneypiece. After a tense moment, Napoleon spoke.

"You may think me a tyrant, Monsieur Lafayette. But you will see soon whether I work for my own good or the good of France. And remember, with this government in place, all it takes is a word from me, and I can remind this country why it hungered for your blood in '93."

Lafayette did not flinch. "If that was meant to convince me you _aren't_  a tyrant," he said, "I'm afraid you miscalculated its effect."

"Commander Bonaparte," Peggy said.

Napoleon flinched. Evidently he hadn't expected her to say anything, but Peggy didn't care about living up to his expectations.

"I don't know what kind of manners they teach military men these days," she went on. "But you have come into my home. You have frightened my housekeeper. You have threatened my husband. I think these are reasonable grounds for me to tell you to get the hell out of my house."

Napoleon glared between the two of them. Finally, like a fox backed into a corner, he scowled and moved toward the door.

"Think it over, Monsieur," he said coldly.

"I already have," Lafayette replied.

And Napoleon was gone.

Lafayette sank down on the sofa beside Peggy, leaning his head on her shoulder. She reached over and put one hand on his knee, softly stroking his hair with the other.

"What a distasteful little man," she remarked, as they heard the front door slam.

Lafayette laughed. "I'm afraid we haven't heard the end of him."

"I'm sure we haven't," she said, "but I don't care. We're home, Lafayette. That's what matters."

"Yes," he said. "We're home."

Eventually, perhaps, he would start to feel that way again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally getting some mileage out of that #GratuitousNapoleon tag...
> 
> Thanks for reading! Drop a note if you'd like—I love them :)


	24. Now I Have Everything

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Alex is, as usual, an idiot, even when he's not here.

Peggy settled down to wait in the parlor, beside the wide window overlooking the grounds of Chavanaic. She'd thought she'd hate living here, in this small chateau where her husband had grown up. But every day, the close, comfortable rooms grew on her. Nowhere near as elegant as their former Parisian townhouse, but much more approachable. The rooms were larger, airier, with the dark, lived-in feel of a hunting lodge somewhere in the Pyrenees.

The quiet of the place, too, soothed her. Its isolation never felt like loneliness. If she wanted to ride in the early morning mist, or hike up her skirts and teach Georges to climb trees, there would be no disapproving strangers to stare at her and scowl. Here she could let herself loose. Laugh loudly and hear the echo resound.

And Lafayette, too, could learn to laugh again.

He entered the room now, dressed in a waistcoat worn soft over nearly a decade of use. A hint of color had returned to his face since their move to the country, and he looked sturdier, less likely to be blown away by a breath of wind. Georges perched proudly on Lafayette's shoulders, enjoying the view from near the ceiling.

Lafayette steadied his son with one hand, carrying a letter in the other. His expression, though reserved, was grim.

Peggy stood up warily. "Is everything all right?" she asked.

Pray God, this wouldn't be one of his difficult days. Today was supposed to be perfect. All four of them, together. He needed this. Peggy needed this.

But while Lafayette's flashbacks of the revolution still came with wearying regularity, now wasn't one of those times. He handed the letter over to her, while Georges' wide eyes watched them from above.

"You'll want to read that before they arrive," he said.

Peggy frowned and unfolded the page. "Not good news, then," she said, beginning to read.

Lafayette hesitated, hoisting Georges off his shoulders and down onto the floor. "Not exactly, no."

_Not exactly,_ as Peggy was quick to discover, was an understatement. Her eyes flickered across the page, narrowing to slits with each line. By the time she reached the bottom of the page, she was scowling like an evil spirit. She crumpled the page in her lap and stood up, knocking two pillows from the sofa.

"I'm going to kill him," she said, and started for the door.

Lafayette's eyes widened. "Where are you going?"

"To New York," she said, already halfway into the hallway. "To kill him."

Lafayette lunged after her, barely catching her by the elbow. "Peggy, for the love of God," he said, "you will not murder any members of my family if I have a say in it."

"He's not our family anymore," Peggy snapped, "therefore you don't."

" _Maman_?" Georges asked, inserting himself between his mother and father—or, more accurately, between his mother's and father's knees. "Who are you going to kill?"

" _Maman_ isn't going to kill anyone _,_ " Lafayette said.

"Uncle Alexander," Peggy said simultaneously.

Lafayette sighed and ran one hand over his mouth. Plainly he had plenty to say if they'd been alone, but he could hardly say them in front of a child. And in any case, their conversation had just become a good deal less private, as two women entered the room.

"Angelica!" she shouted, forgetting her anger. "Eliza!"

"Peggy!" both sisters said in unison.

All the rage drained from Peggy, replaced by a wild flash of joy. She'd been looking forward to this moment since the moment she knew it was going to happen. No, for weeks before that, for months. Years. Ever since her wedding, when she set foot on the ship to Brest alongside Lafayette, since then she'd never stopped thinking of this moment. The moment when both Angelica and Eliza, arm-in-arm as if they were still children, would visit her in France, sweeping into her house, smiling ear to ear.

She threw her arms around Angelica and Eliza at once. It would be a miracle, at this rate, if she didn't cry.

"My God, Peggy," Angelica said, breaking the embrace but not the smile. "Look at you."

"Still alive," Peggy said, spreading her arms to display the proof. "Despite the world's best efforts."

"It would take more than anything the world can do to change you, Peggy," Eliza said.

Peggy wished she could have said the same for her sisters.

It had been years since she'd seen them. They were still themselves, of course, in all the ways that mattered. Angelica's shining dark eyes, quick and clever and witty. Eliza's warm, sympathetic smile, the open-book expression. But there was no denying that the two elder Schuyler sisters seemed…

Tired.

Tired of everything.

Peggy could see thin strands of gray shooting through Eliza's hair. The faint impressions of crow's-feet at the corners of Angelica's eyes. Their smiles were genuine, but out of practice. Even away from the violent revolution that had prematurely aged France, Angelica and Eliza hadn't escaped the pressure of time.

The sadness ached in Peggy's chest, but it was a sweet ache. A kind of empathy, of understanding. She'd never loved her sisters more than she did in that moment.

Everything had changed, and nothing had.

"The Schuyler sisters," Lafayette said, from across the room. "As beautiful as the first night I saw you."

"Lafayette," Eliza said, and both she and Angelica embraced him in turn. "You look well," she added, somewhat hesitantly.

Lafayette laughed. "You're a terrible liar, Eliza. I look awful. But I'm quite well, I promise. All the better to see you both here."

"It seemed like a good time to take a trip," Eliza said, not quite meeting her brother-in-law's eye.

Sensing her discomfort, Lafayette raised one finger, as if to say _wait a moment._ A smile at the corner of his mouth, he crossed the room to peer behind the sofa. Realizing what he was doing, Peggy laughed.

"My son," she said to her sisters, by way of explanation, "is petrified of strangers."

Lafayette dropped down to his knees, disappearing entirely behind the sofa. Only his voice could be heard, speaking in soft French, gently coaxing. The sound of another voice—smaller, higher, and petulant—followed, voicing a stubborn protest. At the first syllable of Georges' voice, both Angelica and Eliza made the kind of half-stifled squeak of excitement reserved for women meeting their nephews and children receiving a new puppy.

Finally, Lafayette seemed to win some headway, as he straightened up balancing Georges on one hip. Eliza's hand rose to cover her mouth. Angelica looked at Peggy, mouthing _Oh my God_ with exaggerated enunciation.

"This little gentleman is Georges," Lafayette said, with an apologetic smile as Georges buried his face in his father's shoulder. "Georges, this is your Aunt Eliza and Aunt Angelica. _Les deux soeurs de Maman. Tu peux dire bonjour_?"

" _Bonjour,_ " Georges said, his voice muffled against Lafayette's shoulder.

Angelica looked liable to drop dead on the spot from delight. Eliza, on the other hand, spoke to Georges with the practiced tone of an eight-time mother.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Georges," she said, quite seriously. "May I shake your hand?"

Georges peeped out, surprised at the request. Biting his lower lip with misgiving, he looked at Eliza for a long moment, as if she were a strange dog that was equally likely to lick his face as bite his hand. Finally, he stuck out one small, pudgy hand, which Eliza took with great ceremony.

"Thank you," she said. "I hope we will be great friends."

Georges said nothing, but turned away from Lafayette and reached his arms out toward Eliza. Lafayette smiled, the expression making him look ten years younger.

"I think the little gentleman would like to say hello," he said.

"I'd like nothing better," Eliza agreed, taking Georges in her arms and sitting on the sofa. The little boy perched contentedly on her lap, nestled close against her, watching as his parents and Angelica took the remaining seats in the parlor. Peggy beside Eliza, Lafayette and Angelica on armchairs opposite the sofa.

"I don't know how you do that, Eliza," Peggy said, shaking her head. "It took him three weeks to warm up to his tutor. We had to bribe him with chocolates."

"Practice," Eliza said with a shrug. "Three of mine were shy. They're all right now, of course. Staying with Dolly and James, while…"

A cold note came over the group. None of them quite knew what to say. Peggy, noticing the letter lying still on the carpet, quietly nudged the page under the sofa with her foot. The joy in seeing her sisters didn't abate, but the rage crept back slowly around the corners, the insatiable need to punch something. Lafayette raised an eyebrow in her direction, and she nodded curtly.

_All right, Lafayette, I'll behave. But my God, you're asking a great deal._

"You haven't spoken to him since…" Peggy said.

"No," Eliza said. She looked down at the carpet, eyes directly on the spot where the letter had been. "I haven't seen him, in fact. Not since the…"

The whole group, apparently, had come down with a sudden inability to finish a sentence.

"That seems like a good idea," Lafayette said, shifting slightly. "Some space."

"That's what I said," Angelica said. "Give him time to—"

"To write another ninety-five-page pamphlet describing how he seduced a stranger off the street and let her husband blackmail him for over a year?"

" _Peggy,_ " Lafayette groaned, and pushed both hands backward through his hair.

Peggy hadn't meant to yell that. She'd had every intention of keeping those words locked safely in her own head. But the road to hell, as they said, was paved with good intentions. She took a long breath and made a valiant effort to modulate her voice.

"I don't want to upset you, Eliza," she said. "I just can't bear to think of anyone treating you that way. You're a saint, and I won't apologize for hating him after he hurt you. If you don't want me to speak of it, I promise, I won't say another word, but…"

Eliza, to everyone's manifest surprise, grinned. "Do you know what I want to do this afternoon, Peggy?" she said.

Peggy hesitated. "What?"

"I want to listen to you call Alexander every name you can think of, for as long as you can."

Angelica choked out a laugh. A wicked smile spread across Peggy's face. Only Lafayette, who had known Peggy better than anyone over the past several years, looked apprehensive.

"Eliza," he said, "are you sure you have time for _every…_ "

"Believe me," Eliza said grimly, "for this? I have time."

"Do you?" Peggy asked. "Are you sure you have time for me to call him a two-timing son of a Scotsman, an human-sized ego with legs, a walking dictionary that thinks with his—"

Twenty minutes later, Peggy had exhausted herself, verbally and physically. It had felt wonderful, to give full and complete vent to her rage, with no one making any effort to stop her—in fact, with both her sisters urging her on. She hadn't been entirely sure she _could_ stop, once she started.

Lafayette's reaction had been complicated, but then, he'd been Alexander's friend, once. Even though the now-Secretary of the Treasury had abandoned Lafayette when he stood most in need of help, still, they'd fought a war together. That kind of bond wasn't easy to break. But the longer Peggy ramped up into her insults, the more he seemed to grow comfortable, until at the end he made a contribution or two of his own, a French phrase so vulgar that Peggy thanked God Georges had fallen asleep in Eliza's lap ten minutes earlier.

"Peggy, I have to admit," Eliza said, gently stroking Georges' soft hair, "that wasn't why I came to France, but if I had known how good it would feel, I would have come weeks ago."

"Please," Lafayette said, "don't encourage her. I still need to live with her."

"You should come back to New York and tell Alexander yourself," Angelica said, ignoring Lafayette.

Peggy smiled, gently lifting Georges from Eliza's lap and shifting him into her own. "Don't tempt me," she said, "or I'll do it."

"I wasn't joking," Angelica said. "How long has it been since either of you have been in New York? When are you planning to come back? We…"

"We miss you," Eliza finished.

No doubt they did. Each trapped in their own unhappy, complex marriage, of course they would want to see her. See Peggy living the adventurous life they'd always known she'd follow, with a husband who stayed at her side and took care of her child, who plainly loved her as much as the day he'd met her.

But go back? To New York?

What was there in New York but a country that betrayed her husband, a country that didn't understand what they'd been through, could never understand?

What was there in New York that she didn't already have, here, in Lafayette's arms?

She felt him looking at her from across the parlor, a faint smile in his eyes, and she smiled back. Lafayette was older now, as she was older. He was not the carefree, naively chivalrous soldier of nineteen he'd been back in Albany, that winter night when he'd taken her hand and her heart in the same moment. He was a man of thirty-nine, as she was a woman of thirty-seven. His face was thinner, more shadowed, his hair slightly sparser and leaning toward gray. She herself was softer around the edges, her body fuller after childbirth, and she saw every morning the fingerprints of wrinkles spreading deeper.

But she was still his wife, and he her husband.

Everything had changed, and nothing had.

"Perhaps we'll return someday," she said, with a shrug.

"Perhaps," he agreed.

"But if we moved back to New York," Peggy finished, "what reason would you have to come visit me?"

Eliza smiled, sadness haunting the curve of it, and for a moment Peggy almost felt guilty. "I don't need a reason, Peggy. You're my sister. You'll always be that, wherever you are."

"Always," Peggy agreed.

Angelica nodded. "Always."

A small knock on the side of the open parlor door drew all four of their attentions at once. Lafayette, startled, half-rose to his feet, but sat back again once he spotted who it was. Catherine, hair now almost entirely gray but eyes still as quick as ever, stood in the doorway with a sheepish expression.

"What is it, Catherine?" he asked, evidently to reassure the housekeeper she hadn't interrupted anything private.

"I apologize for the intrusion, Monsieur," she said. Lafayette and Peggy raised their eyebrows in unison—Catherine had never been sorry for intruding one time in her life. "I have a letter that's just come for you. From Paris."

Lafayette frowned. "From Paris," he repeated. "From whom in Paris?"

Peggy felt her apprehension building. She looked down at Georges, the reassuring warmth of his sleeping form, grounding herself in this present peace. The warring world outside couldn't touch her. Not here. She and Lafayette wouldn't let it.

"From Commander Bonaparte, Monsieur. His messenger said it was urgent."

Peggy closed her eyes, letting out a sigh. Beside her on the sofa, she could feel Eliza's surprise, could sense Angelica's dark eyes darting between Peggy and Lafayette.

_My God. I thought we were done with this. I thought we were finished. Just once, I dared to hope they would leave us alone._

"Thank you, Catherine," Lafayette said.

Peggy's eyes snapped back open. That tone in his voice, it didn't make sense. There was no reason for him to sound so cheerful, so pleasant, upon receiving an urgent message from Commander Bonaparte on a Sunday afternoon.

There was no earthly reason why he should currently be _smiling_.

"If you'd be so kind, Catherine," Lafayette continued, "please burn the commander's letter, and tell his messenger there will be no reply."

Angelica, Eliza, and Catherine stared—Peggy felt a small laugh escape her, a spontaneous sound of relief.

_That's the way, Lafayette. That's the way._

"Monsieur?" Catherine asked.

Lafayette shrugged. "I'm with my wife and her family, Catherine. I have no interest in what Commander Bonaparte has to say, and will not for the foreseeable future."

He spread his arms wide, indicating the contents of the room, Peggy's wicked grin, Georges' steady breathing and faint snores, Angelica and Eliza's looks of collective disbelief.

"As you can see," he finished, "I have everything in the world I need right here."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just one more chapter to follow this! Thanks a billion for reading—leave a kudo or a note with your thoughts if you like.


	25. A Matter of Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we are at the end!

_Charlottesville, Virginia_

" _Vous êtes certain que vous vous sentez bien, Papa?"_  Georges asked, fixing Lafayette with a serious expression from across the carriage. _"Le voyage ne vous a trop fatigué?"_

Lafayette smiled and shook his head, as if his son were seven years old again and had just asked why the sky was blue, whether pigs had wings. "English, if you will, Georges. It's impolite here to speak French. And yes, I have no intention of dropping dead this afternoon."

Georges rolled his eyes. He'd grown into a handsome man, Lafayette thought, watching as his son leaned back against the seat and the emerald fields of Virginia rattled past their carriage windows. A little too sure of himself, a little too concerned with the cut of his jacket and the shine of his pistol, but then, that was to be expected in a single man of thirty. Lafayette had been just the same, as a young man.

Of course, now he had no need for frivolities like that. He and Peggy were approaching their fortieth wedding anniversary. At this stage, it took a state visit for him to purchase a new suit.

For a state occasion of this magnitude, he'd even purchased two.

Peggy, seated beside him in the carriage, peered out the window, craning her neck to see further down the road. Her hair had grayed early, decades before, and laugh lines danced filament-like around her mouth. In the warm Virginia light, Lafayette thought he'd never seen her look so beautiful.

"We should be there soon, shouldn't we?" she asked. "I need to get out of this coach. Six hours from Washington, and nothing to look at but fields the whole way."

As if the driver had heard, the carriage shuddered slightly, then bore to the left, taking a small side road deep into one of the cotton fields. Lafayette leaned across Peggy to catch a better look at the large house looming at the end of the drive.

Seeing it fully, he choked.

Arresting. That was the only word for it. The warm red brick and white marble shone with anachronistic, neoclassical grace, its columns as out of place in that Virginia cotton field as a rabbi in Saint Peter's. Built on the verge of a clear pond, the house seemed even more absurd in reflection, its countless windows and sprawling expanse shimmering slightly through the water. And atop it all, the scandalously ostentatious dome, crowning the whole majestic mess like a Roman temple, an homage to the southern god who had designed and built it.

"It's perfect," Lafayette said, shaking his head. "Exactly what he would do."

Peggy gave a snort of laughter. It made her sound like a young girl again, the same kind of disdainful sound she'd made a hundred times in her twenties. "No one," she said, "has ever accused him of modesty."

The carriage slowed to a stop at the end of the drive. Before the driver could clamber down from the box to open the door, Georges hopped out, helping Peggy down to the drive. Then, with an air of ceremony, Georges gave his arm to Lafayette.

Lafayette's mouth narrowed. To think that he was reduced to this. The Marquis de Lafayette, lieutenant-general of the Revolution, leaning on his son's arm, knees trembling like an old man…

But then, sixty-six was not young. And his joints ached now, most of the time, but especially after sitting. They'd plagued him all afternoon, causing him to bite his tongue whenever the carriage traversed a rough stage of road, though he'd taken care not to let Peggy or Georges sense it. He felt, sometimes, that his body was exacting revenge on him, for the cavalier way he'd taken it for granted in his youth.

Lafayette shook his head, as if to dismiss the ruffled feathers of his injured pride. There were worse people to depend on than your own son.

He let Georges steady him as he descended from the carriage, smiling his thanks to the driver as the man handed him the silver-topped cane he'd procured for the journey.

The party had only taken a few steps toward the house before the door flung open, and a tall man in a long violet coat appeared in the doorway.

It had been decades, of course. Men changed, given that long. The striking hair had faded to white. The once-upright frame now stooped slightly, a slight tremor to the elegant hands. But the smile, that was the same. That slightly off-center smile, wider than the Mississippi, stretching up to his clever black eyes, unfogged by time.

Lafayette would have recognized this man anywhere. "Ah, Jefferson!"

"Ah, Lafayette!" Jefferson said, beaming.

"And Peggy," Peggy reminded them, smiling broadly as she took Lafayette's arm.

_My dear wife, as if anyone could ever forget you._

Despite his age, Jefferson hastened down from the porch to meet the Lafayettes in the drive. Without a hint of the old arrogance or showy decorum he'd worn like a badge of honor as the French ambassador, Jefferson spread his arms wide and embraced them both warmly, like a brother.

Like a true friend, uncolored by betrayal.

But now wasn't the time for those thoughts. Lafayette hadn't made this journey to accuse people who could no longer defend their actions. It was too late for "forgive and forget," but at least for the day, he would try his best to ignore.

"It's good to see you," Jefferson breathed, stepping back to look at them both fully. "So very, very good."

"You as well, my friend," Lafayette said. With a wry smile, he nodded his head at the house. "And it's good to see this monstrosity in person. I confess, when I heard you'd built your own Versailles in the middle of a cotton field, I didn't believe it."

Jefferson laughed. "I've been told drawings don't do it justice. It must be seen to be believed. Dear God, and this must be your son. Georges?"

"Yes, Mr. Jefferson. A pleasure to meet you," Georges said, masking the French lilt in his voice as best he could. He bowed deeply and well. Lafayette felt Peggy squeeze his arm gently, a silent message, _We did well, my love. A son to be proud of._

"Well, come in, come in," Jefferson said briskly, as if just remembering he was eighty-one years old, not an excitable child of eighteen, and that people of their age and station conducted business indoors.

Jefferson ushered them into the house and down a long, carpeted hallway, toward a sitting room decorated in various shades of green. Lafayette sat down heavily on the sofa opposite the window, sighing as the ache in his knees sharpened, then relaxed. Peggy sat beside him, taking his hand. Georges paused a moment in the doorway, looking back into the hall with an expression of wonder.

"Mr. Jefferson," he said, "would you mind if I looked around the—"

"My dear boy, nothing would give me greater pleasure," Jefferson said. The expansive manner of his younger days returned, though restrained by age. "Monticello is meant to be looked at. Go across the hall and tell Stevens he's to give you the full tour."

"Thank you, sir." Georges gave a half-bow and excused himself into the hall.

Jefferson, smiling still, settled into an armchair opposite the Lafayettes. "Is your son really so passionate about neoclassical architecture?" Jefferson asked. "Or is he, like any young man, bored to tears by old men and women reminiscing?"

Peggy laughed. "We've dragged Georges from New Haven to Washington already. If he hears one more old man call Lafayette the 'Fighting Frenchman,' I think he'll throw himself into the Potomac."

"Clearly Americans don't have high standards for heroes, Thomas," Lafayette remarked, "if both you and I somehow qualify."

"I quite agree," Jefferson said, crossing one grasshopper-like leg over the other. "Oh, thank you, Mary, but perhaps later. Let us talk for a few minutes first."

Lafayette and Peggy glanced up, toward the door. A dark-skinned woman stood in the doorway, holding a silver tea tray in both hands. She dropped a low curtsey and disappeared back into the hall, keeping her eyes low, never saying a word. Both Lafayette and Peggy shared a glance, and Peggy shifted uncomfortably on the sofa. Lafayette squeezed her hand, then cleared his throat. They were in the United States only for a few months, and for the first time in nearly fifty years. Strangers, essentially, by now. Did his opinion count for anything? Or was he simply meant to appear as a heroic figurehead of times past, illuminating the glory of the revolution and winking at the injustice of the present?

What would Laurens have said, were he here?

Seemingly oblivious to their discomfort, Jefferson spoke, a small note of melancholy in his words. "Who would have thought it. That the three of us would be here, still, with so many others gone."

Lafayette's eyes dropped to the emerald carpet.

So many.

And one, of course, in particular.

The memory returned again, as it had time and again. The evening two weeks before, when he had stood alone on a sweeping hillside in Virginia.

 

* * *

 

The verdant landscape sprawling in front of him. Moses, climbing to the peak of the mountain. Moses, old but not yet gone, looking forward into the Promised Land. Moses, having arrived too late.

The tomb at his feet. Not a monument to the founder of a nation. Not a mausoleum in the heart of the city that now bore his name. Only a simple, marble tomb, here at the home he loved, beside the wife he loved, in the country he loved.

Alone, Lafayette wept, for the loss of a father.

His secret hopes of introducing his son to the giant for whom he'd been named.

Too late.

Lafayette remained at Washington's tomb until the sun descended behind the hills of Mount Vernon, until purple twilight softened into dusk, until the mournful aria of a barn owl circling the property startled him back into the present. He bent to one knee, aching joints protesting the movement, and kissed the tips of his fingers, then pressed them against the tomb, tracing the letters of Washington's name with his fingertips.

"Thank you," he said aloud.

Somehow, he felt then, it seemed as if Washington heard.

Then he rose, took a deep breath, and turned back toward the house, where Peggy and Georges waited on the veranda.

 

* * *

 

"I never thought we would outlive him," Lafayette said. He didn't need to specify who he meant. "Somehow I always thought he would live forever."

"So many of them," Peggy said, leaning against Lafayette. "Washington. Laurens. Alexander. Angelica…"

Lafayette heard Peggy's voice crack over the last syllable. Quietly, he reached over and wrapped one arm around her shoulders. She accepted the gesture, but said nothing about it.

He hadn't been there beside her, when she visited Trinity Church on their way through Manhattan. He'd offered, of course. But she told him, gently but firmly, that this was one visit she had to make alone.

 

* * *

 

The churchyard was smaller than she'd expected. When Eliza had written of it, years earlier, Peggy imagined a vast, sprawling field, like the grounds ringing her and Lafayette's chateau in Chavaniac.

Foolish, she realized now. The idle imagining of a grief-stricken brain prone to fantasy. There were no fields in New York, scarcely any trees, barely any sky. This small grove, ringed by a high iron fence, neatly kept grass, five or six maple trees shading it from Wall Street without, was the closest to Eden that Manhattan could offer.

She sat on a small stone bench, hands folded in her lap, looking at the three gravesites standing side-by-side.

The largest, of course, was his. A soaring obelisk, an unnecessary quantity of marble, as ostentatious and profligate in death as he'd been in life. Never use one word when ten would do. Never settle for a grave marker when one could have a monument. Not until she saw his grave did Peggy realize she'd never quite forgiven Alexander, for what he'd done to her sister. Not until she saw his grave did she realize she didn't plan to.

The small space, empty still, beside him. Eliza's, one day. Planned in advance. Taking her time, for which Peggy was grateful.

And the third, near them both, a simple headstone, one that threatened to release Peggy's tears.

Angelica. Buried next to Alexander. Well, Peggy was not surprised. She'd known since Eliza's wedding. Everyone knew. Everyone with eyes.

"I'll miss you, sister," Peggy said quietly.

_Don't,_ she could almost hear Angelica saying. _I'll see you later, little sister. Enjoy yourself, until then._

 

* * *

 

"It does something to one's perspective," Jefferson sighed, shifting in the chair as though his back troubled him. "Death, I mean. It makes you wonder. What was it all for? All our work. How hard we tried."

Lafayette glanced toward the window, where the midafternoon sun streamed through and dotted the green wallpaper with flecks of gold. Charlottesville was miles from the coast, he knew. It was foolish, to think he could see the ocean from here. And yet, he found his mind wandering to the Atlantic, painting an image of its turbulent waves, painted with the sun. An ocean separating his two homes, two revolutions.

So different, both, yet in so many ways the same.

So much lost, so much won, in both.

"It wasn't for nothing, my friend," Peggy said. "We've had losses, but they meant something. They did."

_My friend,_ Lafayette thought, smiling to himself. Forty years ago, Peggy had threatened to break every one of Jefferson's fingers.  _Friend,_ she called him now.

"Look around," Peggy continued. Her smile had a sadness to it, the bittersweet reverie that came only with age. "Look at where we are."

Jefferson looked out the window, at the sweeping lands around Monticello, at the Virginia he had dedicated his political life to protecting.

Lafayette looked, instead, at Peggy.

How far they'd come, the two of them. Two young people in a heady ballroom, wild, stupid, quick to fall in love and slow to think of consequences. A soldier and a covert agent of the revolution, fighting for two ideals at once, the right to freedom and the right to love. A new-made husband and wife, leaning over the rail of a ship, looking naively eastward toward an approaching shore. Two souls trapped in the whirlpool of a country descending into terror. Two prisoners, free in each other's eyes.

Parents. Citizens. Lovers.

Friends.

Peggy smiled—the same smile as ever, age would not touch that. A soft smile that spoke of memory, of affection, of promise.

Of time gone, and time still to come.

"Look at where we are, indeed," Lafayette said, and kissed her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for joining me through this sentimental rare-pair historical nonsense-journey! These two idiots are near and dear to my heart, and a billion thanks to everyone who was like "Peggy/Lafayette? This seems fake but OK I'll try it." 
> 
> (Maybe someday I'll finish a full-length fic that doesn't require me to research a bunch of facts about Napoleon, but so far I'm three for three.)
> 
> Drop a note if you liked—I live for them!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Look Around, Look Around](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14417130) by [martial_quill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/martial_quill/pseuds/martial_quill)




End file.
